


One Deadline Too Many

by maggiemerc



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Cat Is Her Lois Lane, F/F, Kara Is A Tragic Hero, Kara and Clark Joint Landing, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-06-02 20:37:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6581287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggiemerc/pseuds/maggiemerc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Almost ten years after Cat Grant gave Kara her first kiss they're reunited and trying to uncover corruption in one of the largest broadcasting companies in Metropolis. It would go a lot smoother if Cat and Kara actually got along, or if Cat recognized the girl she fell in love with when she was in high school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

She was disoriented.

That’s why it took her so long. When she kicked her way out of her pod this whole new world screamed back at her. She couldn’t focus--looking at and through everything, smells like nothing she’d ever seen, the air like razors across her skin. She ran away, faster than any ship she'd flown in, and curled up in a ball at the center of a copse of trees.

Real trees. Not the kind grown in a arboretum to teach kids what trees used to be, but ones grown from scratch and coming right out of the ground.

She listened to the creak of them as they grew. Focused on it. Marveled at it.

And when she could finally focus—could open her eyes without seeing across the world—she went back for her ship.

But it was gone.

And Kal-El was too.

And Kara Zor-El was alone.

***

She found Kal in a home made of wood and glass and stones dug out of the earth. The wood was enthralling. She dragged her fingers across it. Rough and almost pliant under her hands.

Wood had been a luxury on Krypton. Stuff made from it found only in museums, or on her uncle’s desk. But on Earth they built entire buildings from it and lived in it.

Kal would know such a different world than the one he should have grown up in.

She floated—because she could float and it was the best feeling in the world besides a hug from her parents—at the window and watched the two adults cradle her cousin like he was their own.

“What should we call him,” the man asked. And he looked to the woman with affection that it made Kara’s heart hurt.

“Clark,” she whispered. “Clark Kent.”

The man laughed. “I always wanted a son.”

And now he had one, fallen straight out of the sky.

***

Kara drifted.

***

She stole clothes from a place called K-Mart. The K sound made her think of Krypton. She liked it there. She would sleep there. Hiding until the staff left for the night and then sitting in front of the wall of televisions. Just absorbing a whole new world while drinking Icee after Icee and eating Oreos.

She really liked the sugar found on Earth.

But people started to notice her. One of them made a comment. Took a step towards her. Asked where her parents were.

So she left. Flew up into the sky and let the wind take her away from K-Mart and Kansas.

She glided towards the sun and eventually reached water and a place the humans called Metropolis.

It thrummed with life. Reminded her of Argos City, but with glass boxes instead of crystal spires. Everyone was going somewhere and few people focused on the world around them.

She disappeared into the city.

Yet her Kryptonian roots were strong. Mottos and ethics tattooed into her very soul.

So she helped. She saved lives and stopped bad guys and always disappeared before anyone could see her face and call out the young girl capable of doing extraordinary things.

She couldn't be her planet's hero or even her cousin's. But she could be their hero. This human race.

***

The plane crash changed everything.

Its engines burned in some gross mockery of Flamebird and the screams of its passengers rung in her ears.

"I don't want to die," a girl whispered to herself and she was no older than Kara.

So little 14 year old Kara flew up into the sky and caught a plane on her back.

They fished her out of the water and assumed she was a passenger. That's why they gave her the name Linda Lee.

"Your parents are gone," the social worker said. There was a sad look on his face. Like the news broke him, but Kara took it well. Her parents had been gone for so long that sometimes she forgot to cry for them.

She went into foster care.

"You're very good at math," the teacher said and Kara wanted to tell her that it was just very easy math for a little Kryptonian girl.

But everyone was impressed and soon she was on scholarship to a school where the children sneered at K-Mart and collected news parents like trading cards.

***

That's where she met Cat Grant.

***

Cat Grant was the meanest, the nastiest, girl at school. She was better at English than anyone else and the teachers all swooned over her writing like they swooned over Kara's math.

But her words could do what knives and bullets could not and left Kara cut to the quick.

“You’re such a lost little girl, Linda Lee.”

Kara didn't have the heart to tell her she was using a dead girl's name.

***

Cat was the cruelest tease, but Kara suffered them. They were, at the very least, clever.

And that was one thing she and Cat agreed on. What was said didn't matter, but it had to be clever.

Kara was very good at English, even if she hated it. Mandarin was her favorite. Still slow and stilted compared to Kryptonian, but not like the thuggish beating of a drum that English and German were.

French was her least favorite.

She stumbled over it. Struggled. The words muddied together. It was also her official language in school.

They wore headphones to practice. Their teacher would listen in. Or not. Sometimes he’d disappear.

Kara stumbled over a conjugation and got confused. Conjugated in German.

The students laughed.

She reached for the right word but found English and then Mandarin instead.

Finally she shouted. In Kryptonian. Loud and clear and hers.

The laugher bubbled into a peel of guffaws with the other students imitating her like she was simple.

But their jokes weren't clever.

So Cat stepped in. She tore them down like trees in a forest faced with an axe.

Then she built Kara up, Just like that little house Kal lived in.

***

They became friends.

Cat said she liked Kara because she was good at math and smarter than the students gave her credit for.

"You just have to stop being so awkward around everyone."

Kara didn't know how to explain it--how painful Earth was. How loud and smelly and ugly and foreign. How laughter was the braying of an animal and smiles felt cruel.

She had trouble "reading" all these funny aliens she was stuck with.

But Cat read her. Just like one of the books her mother edited. So she taught Kara how this new world worked.

She was gentle. Kind. Nothing like the ruthless girl Kara first met.

"Where are you from," she asked one night. They were on the roof and sharing a pack of cigarettes. Kara hated the taste, but loved how the smell blocked out the world.

Cat hated them too, but Kara was sure Cat liked how she looked with them. Cigarette dangling from long, elegant fingers. As careless as the pen she often wore behind her ear when she was sure no one was around.

Kara looked up at the stars. When she squinted she could see it. Rao.

This far away it was a pinpoint of light.

She said, "Indiana."

Cat laughed and rolled onto her side to peg Kara with an amused look. "You are not from Indiana."

Kara took a big puff and exhaled it into the sky. "I am."

"No. You've got an accent. Only sometimes. And that day in French. You spoke some language I've never heard of."

"You've heard of all of them?"

"Enough," she said with a lazy smirk.

Cat never missed a thing. People just assumed. She was great in English and she was a cheerleader, so they just assumed she was a particular kind of girl. They missed the razor wire and sharp glass Cat was made of.

Kara let the muscles in her neck go loose and her head lolled to one side. To face Cat. "Maybe I'm not from Indiana."

"So where are you from?"

"Nowhere you've heard of."

"You could try me. I might surprise you Linda Lee." She said Kara's name like a secret. One shared between just the two of them.

Kara took another drag on her cigarette. "Do you ever think about being up there?"

Cat followed her gaze. "Space?"

Kara nodded. There was a scrape of fabric on rough roof and Cat was repositioning herself. Gently laying her head on Kara's stomach and wordlessly handing her another cigarette.

"What girl doesn't think about being an astronaut."

Kara lit it with the stubby remnant of her cigarette and handed it back. ”I don't want to visit. I want to be there."

Cat took it. The glow caught in her eyes. ”You want to live in the stars?"

"Yeah."

Cat inhaled. Coughed. She smoked because cool girls smoked, not because she liked it. Kara could hear it in the way the smoke rasped around in her lungs.

Sometimes she worried.

Cat moved again, her cheek pressed to Kara's belly. Something hot and wonderful churned in Kara. "We should go together."

"Yeah?"

Cat reached for a strand of Kara's hair, her fingers brushing Kara's sweater. Her breast.

Kara swallowed.

But if Cat had any idea of what she was unraveling she didn't show it. And how could she know? Cat didn't have x-ray vision or super hearing. She was just a girl.

A human girl.

She played with Kara's hair like it was the most natural thing in the world. "I bet it'd be a lot of fun with you as a guide."

Kara's hand hovered over Cat's head. She started to reach down. Stopped.

But Cat's eyes, glittering in the dark caught hers. Dared her not to.

She didn't miss the sigh when her fingers combed through Cat's hair. "What makes you think I'd be a good guide?"

Cat didn't answer. She smiled and Kara smiled back and they lay like that until Cat drifted off to sleep, Kara's fingers still in her hair.

***

They helped each other, Cat the wordsmith and Kara the math “genius”. It was a boarding school and they both had roommates so they’d meet in the library and huddle around their books. Sometimes Cat would ask for help and Kara would lean over and her finger would graze Cat’s elbow.

She’d hear the sharp intake of breath, the quick beat of her heart, and she’d smile to herself and pretend not to notice.

Other times she’d struggle with the language in her books. She couldn’t sound the words out loud. “Idiots” did that and Kara did not want to be branded an idiot. So she’d follow along with a pen, the end of it skating over the page. Cat knew what she was doing, but never commented, at least loud enough for others to hear. She'd scoot in close, her knee bumping Kara's clumsily.

"Which part," she'd whisper, just loud enough for Kara alone to hear.

Sometimes her hand would settle on Kara's back, fingers tracing patterns neither understood.

Other times it would settle on her knee. Just high enough for Kara to flush.

Cat didn't have super powered senses, but with Kara she always knew.

***

They were up later than they should have been.

Finals.

Cat would have to do the math all on her own and Kara needed to have finished the entirety of William Faulkner's Light in August. Intellectually she got the book, but everything was too fragmented for her to follow easily. So she read each page slowly. And twice.

Eventually she groaned and set her forehead in the open pages.

"I hate English."

Cat smirked, too pleased with herself.

Kara ranted. Something she only did in Cat's company. Words falling off her tongue like she was born to the language. But she must have switched at some point because Cat got a funny look in her face.

Kara flushed and tried to remember what she'd been ranting in. She ducked her head and returned to her reading and prayed Cat just chalked it up to her being weird.

"What language is that?"

Cat never missed a beat.

"French?"

"Non," she said, and her accent was enviable. "It's your first language isn't it?"

Kara didn't answer. She stared at the letters until they dissolved into nonsense.

“It's the same one you spoke in language lab. And under your breath when you don't think I'm paying attention."

"You always pay attention. Nothing escapes Cat Grant."

She shrugged her shoulders, but smiled all the same, pleased that Kara had noticed.

And Kara thought that was the end of it.

"Rao." Cat said it carefully. Like she was trying it on for size. Her mouth shaped the word all wrong. Like when Kara spoke French.

But it was fresh air in a mire. Water in a drought. Kara trembled with the suddenness of the word and how quickly it broke through whatever barriers she'd built up.

"You always utter that one," Cat said softly. "I figure it's a curse or—“

"A god."

"From your country?"

Planet. Kara looked at her own hands. Focused on a mole between her thumb and finger. She didn't get moles anymore. Not on Earth. She could stay out all day and not have to worry about moles or burns or cancer.

"Linda."

Cat used the name so carefully. Like it was a fragile thing she'd split apart. It made Kara long to hear her own name--her real name. She thought Cat would say it nicely.

"I knew Linda Lee.”

Kara snapped around. Her heart was in her throat.

But Cat didn’t look any different. She’d just accused Kara, but seemed non-plussed bye the accusation. “Linda is an insufferable know it all and her parents died in Switzerland. She skipped the flight back to stay there with family friends. She wasn’t on the plane with me when it crashed—when they fished you out.”

It had been Cat clutching the arm rests and saying she didn’t want to die. Over and over again.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Kara's voice was barely a whisper.

"It wasn't my business."

The "then" was implied.

"And now?"

Cat cocked her head. "I just want to know your name."

"Why?"

She started to say Linda again. Stopped. “Because…because—“

Kara was fast. Faster than any human or car or plane. She could see the wings of a hummingbird in flight and catch a fly with a finger. But Cat, in the moment, was faster. She darted forward and pressed her lips to Kara's.

It was Kara's first kiss.

She gasped, because she'd never expected--never hoped--for such a thing. And Cat drew back, her heart beating like a jackhammer and worry in her bright green eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said. Like it had been an impulse she couldn't control. An action they should regret.

The last time someone had kissed Kara her whole world had exploded.

This wasn't as cataclysmic. It didn't shatter her. Just shocked her.

Cat reached for her things and started to pack. "That was stupid. I’m stupid. Just forget--"

Kara caught her wrist and tugged her back down into her seat and kissed her again.

The first kiss was memorable only because it was the first. And actually kind of awful. To Cat it must have been like kissing a pylon.

But the second...Kara was ready. She made herself yield. She let herself be kissed. The feel of Cat softly pressed to her, her breath hard and fast and her heartbeat a steady drum.

Cat’s bag dropped with a thump and her hand found its way to Kara’s cheek. She kissed with an open mouth that was so warm and inviting. "Relax," she said against Kara's lips.

She relaxed.

She forgot about what she was and what she could do and where she was from and focused just on what was in front of her, and now pressed against her.

She gasped into the next kiss. An opened mouth one she'd only ever seen in stories. Never hoped to experience herself.

Her hands fell onto Cat's waist and Cat's other hand found its way to Kara's cheek and she was so soft and careful. She cradled Kara like she would be the one that would break.

Kara wasn't terrified. Maybe she should have been. She could kill with a look and cripple with a touch. But Cat made her feel safe.

Cat was home.

But because Kara wasn't paying attention--because she let go--it all went wrong.

A teacher saw them. Separated them. And Cat's mother arrived in a cloud of expensive perfume and old cigarette smoke. She quoted numbers and used words like deviant and that was the end of Linda Lee's tenure at the school.

The last thing she saw, as she looked over her shoulder, was Cat Grant in a window. Face carved of stone.

***

They sent her to a special group home. "To help," they said.

Kara flew away the second night there.

She thought of Cat and tasted bitterness and she thought of home and hurt.

Then she thought of Kal. He was almost four and had thick dark hair like his father and his aunt.

When she appeared in his window his voice was soft with wander. "Are you an angel?"

***

The Kents were very busy with a farm and jobs and a son whose tantrums could level buildings.

They didn't notice the angel living in the barn and when Kal--Clark mentioned her they'd laugh about his imaginary friend.

She helped during the day, when the Kents were busy, and at night she'd repair the messes her cousin had made.

She only showed herself to Kal--no, Clark--at night. She'd crawl into his bed and tell him stories. Sometimes in English. Usually in Kryptonian.

He said he liked the sound and would curl into her chest.

Later, when there was just the lullaby of a sleeping family, Kara would float just above the roof of the barn and watch the stars. They were brighter than they'd been in school. No light polluting their shine.

There was Rao.

She always found it. A dim star. Dull. If she squinted hard enough she thought she could see the dust. Ashes of her world. Her parents. Her friends.

When she cried it wasn't always over Krypton. Sometimes it was over a green-eyes girl who saw through her like she had x-ray vision.

***

Kara didn't get cold or hot, and she didn't sneeze anymore. Or cough.

But Clark did. He had a tantrum so bad Kara intervened, flitting in faster than Martha or Jonathan could see. She raced Clark through fields of corn and wheat, and over forests and cities and she threw him in a lake.

It stopped the tantrum dead, but by then it was too late. Clark's powers were blown out and he got a cold.

Martha gave him medicine and Jonathan read to him while a humidifier blew warm, wet air over him.

Kara stayed, pressed tightly to the wall outside his window and when his adoptive parents were gone she slipped in and hugged him tight and listened to the rattle of air in his chest.

She fell asleep like that one night.

She woke up to Clark's steady breath in her ear. And then another. They were breathing faster. Through the mouth. Like they were terrified. And the quick beat of their heart supported the theory.

She opened her eyes.

Martha Kent was staring at her, tray loaded with oatmeal and orange juice and held in front of her.

It was the first time Kara had ever been so close to her. She could see the start of grey in her hair and the fine wrinkles around her mouth and the spatter of freckles on her nose.

She had a kind face.

Even if she was terrified.

Kara could have said something--anything--but she flew through the window, turning glass to dust as she went.

***

She left Kansas again.

Or tried to.

She carried planes on her back and cars on her shoulders and she never went to Metropolis, to a school where she would have found a green-eyed girl looking wistfully up at the stars.

Kal was five and Kara nearly drowned trying to save a bridge from collapsing. She went back to Smallville, to the barn, and she curled up in the loft where she could see bright slivers of the sky and she slept.

The heat of the sun on her forehead woke her. And footsteps in the barn below.

She crept carefully to the edge. Quiet as the mice in the hay.

Martha Kent was there with a package of Oreos and a gallon of milk. Kara could see the condensation on the jug.

“I thought you might be hungry,” she said. The lilt in her English was nice. Soothing.

Kara was hungry. It gnawed at her insides and threatened to tear her in two.

But she wanted to fly. To flee.

She started to. Braced herself.

Revealed herself.

She heard the sharp increase in Martha's heartrate. Saw the way her eyes widened. Then she swallowed. “The other ship was yours wasn’t it?”

Kara pushed away. Floated down.

Martha Kent gasped, but she didn’t run, and there was no fear in her. At least none Kara could hear.

“When Clark landed we found both y’alls ships, but only Clark. Jonathan went looking for the other one--for you. It was you wasn’t it?”

Kara knelt down by the Oreos. “I like the Double Stuffed ones more,” she said quietly. “Need the calories.”

“Clark does too.”

“Kal.”

“Pardon me?”

“That was the name his birth parents gave him. Kal.”

Martha didn’t disagree. She smiled. Gently. The kind of smile Kara hadn’t received in years. “What about you, sweetheart? What name they give you?”

“Kara.”

“Kara. Is Clark—Kal your brother, Kara?”

“My cousin.”

“I see.” She reached down for the milk. Popped the cap off and took a swig before offering it to Kara. “And y’alls parents?”

“They died. That’s why they sent us here.”

“To save you.”

Kara nodded.

“Kara, I want you to know I’d like to hug you. Is that all right?”

Kara didn’t say anything, because to be perfectly honest she didn’t know if it was all right. She’d hadn’t been hugged—touched since Cat. And before that since her parents. That sensation was always so fleeting. A phantom of a life she’d never have.

But she remembered enough, and desperately needed more.

So Martha Kent wrapped her in her arms and she was soft and smelled like the sheets on Clark’s bed. Her grip was tight. Fearless. She had to know what Kara was capable of, but she didn’t care.

“I got you,” she whispered into Kara’s hair, and Kara realized she was crying and soaking the shoulder of Martha Kent’s shirt. “It’s gonna be okay. You hear me?”

***

And it was.

***

There were two major reasons she took the job at the Daily Planet when she could have worked for the Tribune or the Times or the Gotham City Gazette. One: Perry White offered her more freedom and less oversight than the editors at the other papers. He trusted her even though she was a “snot-nosed kid with more guts than sense”. And two?

Cat Grant was an assistant editor there and it had been nearly a decade since Kara had seen her last.

She didn’t think she’d changed that much. She pulled her hair back now, and she wore glasses, but outside of the movies that wasn’t that significant a difference.

She was positive Cat would see her and give her a slow smile and maybe they wouldn’t be what they had been, but they’d be something.

She grinned and held her hand out. “Kara Kent,” she said with all the enthusiasm she could muster.

Cat glanced up from the copy she was editing and then glanced back down. “I’d be charmed, but you country bumpkins looking to cover more than cow tippings are a dime a dozen, Kara Kent. So pardon me if I don’t make an effort to care about your sad little existence.”

She slashed through the copy with her red pen for emphasis and walked away.

Apparently a ponytail and glasses were as good as a mask shaped like a bat.

Cat Grant had no idea who she was.

Eight years apart and the girl who could see everything was blind.


	2. Chapter 2

The list of people Cat Grant despised was relatively short.

Her mother—on most occasions.

Irritatingly talented intern Lois Lane—on all occasions.

And Kara Kent of Kansas.

By far, Kara was the worst offender of the three. She wasn’t as talented a writer as Lois. And she wasn’t blood like Cat’s mother. She was just…good. She had a goofy smile and always shrugged her broad shoulders and was always helping others in the office when she didn’t need to.

Then she’d churn out well-researched stories with sources no one, anywhere, should be able to get. She made up for her mediocre writing ability with those stories. Tales of corruption and greed and bloodshed. Hard hitting journalism that gave their boss a boner and left the rest of the newsroom impressed.

Cat Grant was a great scion of publishing with accolades, and internships and a prestigious education. She was the youngest Assistant Editor on the metro desk in years. And yet the spotlight was on Kara Kent from Kansas.

It made her want to scream.

She didn’t. That would have given her a nasty reputation.

Well…nastier reputation. Her boss, Perry White, had once told a meeting room full of people there was no bigger bitch at the paper than her and she’d made the copy desk cry.

Four times.

So screaming over all the injustices Kara Kent represented wouldn’t do her any good.

She settled on being surly. Having a cutting remark ready anytime Kara spoke to her. And waiting. Just waiting for that day she could swoop in and steal Kara Kent’s thunder.

It happened on a Tuesday.

***

Kara hadn’t been paying attention.

She blamed it on her hearing. It was better than any human’s. Let her catch heartbeats and shoes scuffing across the carpet and embarrassing noises in the bathroom.

It also let her hear things like what was going on one floor down in the dark room. An amorous couple was having a very distracting quarrel turned sex session. Kara’s cheeks were beet red as she listened—not of her own volition naturally. Some things were so loud she couldn’t avoid them.

Which was why she wasn’t paying attention and missed whatever it was Perry said.

It had to have been important. He, and the rest of the people in the pitch meeting, stared at her. Some nervous. Some wary. Cat Grant looked obnoxiously pleased.

Kara blinked. “I’m sorry…what?”

Cat sat up straighter. Thin lips curled. It made her look like the Cheshire Cat out of that cartoon Clark loved. “You have a new partner, partner.” She said that second partner with way too much relish.

Kara looked from Cat back to Perry. “What?”

Perry looked like he had a bowel obstruction. Lips pursed and eyes narrowed. “You sounded like you needed help on the GBS story. Cat’s offering.”

“I meant an intern. Like Lois…”

Lois Lane was sitting in a chair by the door. Just removed from the table and the chance at pitching. She perked up. “I—“

Perry held up his hand. “Nope. Cat’s been stuck behind a desk doing edits for months now. She needs the opportunity to write and she’s got connections you’ll need for the story. It’s perfect.”

“Okay.” Kara pushed up her glasses. Pressed her hands into the table top. “But just additional reporting. Right?”

Cat shook her head. “Byline Kent. We’re writing the story together.”

Kara really wished she’d been paying better attention after announcing her pitch. “But…I don’t share bylines.”

Some of the older reporters, experienced men who still wore suits and ties to work, snorted.

Perry scowled. “Then you can learn. Now the meeting’s over. Everyone who’s not an editor can get the hell out.”

Cat, being an editor, stayed. And fingerwaved smugly.

After the door closed behind them Lois punched Kara’s arm. She then shoved her hand in her pocket to cover up the pain. Kara knew for a fact it hurt humans to punch her—even lightly. She also knew Lois Lane never learned.

“Bad luck on that one. I would have been fine with an additional reporting credit. Course I’m eighteen so any mention of my name in the paper is nice but—“

Kara just looked ahead. Amorous couple downstairs forgotten. Even the meeting behind her a mere drone in her super sensitive ears. “I have to work with her.” The woman she kissed when she was in high school and now couldn't even remember her name.

“Yeah.”

“On a month-long story.” Just the two of them.

“Yup.”

“Just the two of us.” Rao.

Lois nodded sagely. Reached up and settled her hand on Kara’s shoulder. “The bright side is if you murder Cat nobody will complain about motive.”

Kara wanted to groan. She didn’t.

“And the orange jumpsuit will probably look really nice with your complexion.”

Kara shuffled back to her desk, shoulders drooping.

How on Earth was she supposed to work with Cat Grant for a month? They could barely tolerate each other for pitch meetings, and Kara was, for the record, super easy going.

She was a nice person.

Cat Grant was just…mean. Some things people apparently didn't grow out of.

She dropped down into her chair and stared at the piece she’d been working on before the pitch meeting.

A whole month.

She snagged a pen and stuck it in her mouth, a hold over from when she’d first landed on earth and had nothing to show from her old life but the necklace around her neck. The day she’d accidentally snapped the chain with her teeth had been miserable.

She was more careful with the pen—she didn’t need her face covered in ink. She just rolled it around between her teeth while her knee bounced and she read over her copy again.

The couple down in the dark room were back doing actual work, from what she could hear, and he was telling her she was prettier than any of the women he’d shot at a movie premiere.

A shadow darkened the pages of her copy. She didn’t have to turn around to know it was Cat. She wore a distinctive perfume that blended nicely with her personal scent and her heart always beat like a hummingbird around Kara. A quick drum in Kara’s ear.

“I thought you’d be working the phones,” Cat said. Dragging the word out and turning the statement into an admonishment.

Kara held up her copy. “Edits before I send it to Perry.”

Cat snatched it out of her hands and read it quickly. “It looks fine.”

“I was reading that.”

Cat motioned at Kara with the papers. “Writer.” Then she pointed at herself. “Editor.” She threw it back into Kara’s lap. “It’s fine, and no one’s going to care about a few cliches in a piece about puppies.”

“It’s a national chain running a puppy mill. There’s proven fraud and willful animal abuse.”

Cat made a face like someone had thrust old socks in her face. “Whatever. It’s fine. We have an entire organized crime syndicate to unmask.”

"Galaxy Broadcasting System is a syndicate now?"

"Maybe."

“You’re excited.”

“I’m hungry Kent. Do you know the last time I wrote something beyond fluff?”

Kara raised an eyebrow. “You can write anything beyond fluff?”

Cat had a lovely scowl. “I understand that’s what passes for a joke in Kansas, but lately it feels like the actual truth.”

“If you wanted to get out off the fluff desk you could have pitched something that wasn’t fluffy. Instead you’re piggy backing on my story.”

“Oh please. Half the story is how GBS is being funded by the Metropolis elite. You know who the Metropolis elite don’t talk to? A reporter who shops at Sears and chews on broken pens.”

She reached out to swipe a cool thumb across Kara’s lips. It was shockingly invasive.

And confusing. Very confusing.

And damn it she’d cracked her pen open at some point in the conversation. There was a black smudge on Cat’s thumb.

“Why don’t you clean up and I’ll meet you down in the parking garage?”

“I don’t.” She swallowed and could taste ink. “I don’t shop at Sears.”

Cat didn’t believe her.

She conceded. Reluctantly. “It’s Target.”

Cat looked very pleased with herself. Another big smile. Calling attention to her high cheekbones and large teeth. “I’ll see you downstairs in five Kent.”

Kara rose to clean her face and caught Lois’s eye. The girl grinned and pantomimed a noose around a neck before pointing at Cat’s retreating back.

***

She expected Kara Kent to have a messy ten-year-old Honda with pits of rust from road salt and a backseat full of old newspapers and hamburger wrappers.

She did not expect Kara Kent to be carless.

At least the woman had the good sense to look abashed.

“How can you not have a car?” Cat really didn’t understand. Everyone had a car. “How do you get around the city?”

“I run—to the train. A lot?”

“You take public transit?” It was no longer 1980s bad, but it was still the train.

Kara shrugged. “I took a cab a couple of times, but then I felt like I needed to be talking to the driver you know? It was too stressful. So I just ride the train and listen to my Walkman.”

She pulled the tape player from her purse as if to submit proof. It was probably the most expensive thing Kara Kent owned.

Cat sniffed. “The help takes the train.”

“That’s a very elitist way of looking at public transit Cat.” She returned her Walkman to her purse. “And it’s not green either.”

“Oh please. Those Earth Day idiots can eat my ass.”

“That’s an image.”

She stalked towards her Volvo. It was the first thing she’d purchased when she was old enough to tap into her trust fund. It was getting a little on the old side—especially compared to the cars her friends drove, but it was hers.

“We’ll take my car then.” She jammed her thumb down on the unlock button and the door’s locks thumped open.

Kara looked at the car with the blank stare of someone who’d never set foot on a car lot. “The Mercedes in the shop?”

“I’ll have you know this is the safest car on the market.”

“Oh well, if it’s safe. That’s what matters.”

“Jokes like that make you sound like an idiot Kara.”

Kara yanked her door open with enough force to make Cat wince and dropped into the passenger seat like a stone. She immediately started rummaging around in her purse. “Do you mind if I snack while you drive?”

“I do—“

“I haven’t had second breakfast yet and I’m famished.” A bagel must have lurked somewhere in the depths of her purse because she produced it with great flourish.

Then she started eating.

Even though Cat had just explicitly told her not too.

Cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk from all the boiled bread she slowly turned to Cat. “You gonna go already?”

She went, and she blasted NPR to avoid listening to Kara’s chewing. They discussed the story while she drove, outlined their best bets for candid conversation.

Kara produced a cellphone at one point—apparently she could afford one since she didn’t own a car—and had their morning quickly jammed full of appointments.

“How, pray tell, do you plan for us to get across town from Highland Park in under twenty minutes?”

Kara called the last appointment and moved it.

***

Cat was expecting to go to some unpleasant places in pursuit of the story. Working class suburbs and brunches with sycophants.

A bar at noon was, at least a little, unexpected.

"A subcontractor for the new GBS building's apparently been wasting his whole paycheck here. Everyday," Kara explained.

"Name?"

"Todd Billings."

Cat smirked. "I know Todd. He worked on a project for my mother."

Kara glanced at her. "So he should be terrified of her and any of her progeny?"

Cat would have liked to have been annoyed by the supposition, but it was completely true. "Yes," she said.

Kara grinned and held the door open. "Be my guest then."

"So I'll be bad cop and you'll be good--"

Kara shut the door directly behind Cat, cutting off the conversation. The whole bar collapsed into darkness, the patrons returning to their watered down beers as soon as the sunlight stopped blinding them.

It was, just briefly, terrifying. Like the first time she did an interview by herself. Lonely and too large.

She straightened her back, let her eyes adjust to the dark, and scanned the room for Billings.

He must not have looked up--seen her--because he was still staring blankly ahead and nursing his drink.

While others were rattled by the click of Cat's heels on the warped tile floor, Billings was unmoved.

Until she settled her Coach bag on the table in front of him.

Then it was like a sports replay with the slow motion, his eyes going from the bag, to her hand, to her face.

He blanched.

Cat grinned.

Todd Billings ran.

Not for the door Cat had gone through. She could have blocked him then.

Instead he ran for the one out the back and through what passed for a kitchen.

She was steps behind him, terrified of catching him and just as terrified of losing him.

He smashed through the door, sunlight streaming in and obscuring Cat's vision. She briefly saw a looming shadow in front of Billings--blotting out the sun.

It was Kara Kent.

And running into her was like hitting a wall. Somehow Kara was unmoved but Billings was thrown back cartoonishly, landing on the ground and cupping one wrist. He peered up at Kara in horror.

"What the hell are you?"

She smiled and pushed her glasses up her nose. "Kara Kent Mr Billings. And my colleague and I have some questions for you."

***

Heart rate was erratic. Breathing too. The man sitting opposite Cat and Kara was terrified--at least from what she could hear. There was still a distractingly quick beat to Cat's heart and it sometimes took up too much of Kara's attention.

She glared at Cat, as if that would get her to calm down, but Cat ignored her, used her tiny straw to move the cherry around in her whiskey sour.

"You ran awfully fast, she said. "My mother wasn't that bad."

Billings eyed Cat like he thought she was a liar. "You're a reporter aren't you? For one of the big papers."

Cat preened in a husky voice, "the Planet."

"Why are you scared of reporters, Todd?" Kara tried to keep her voice calm and soothing, just a hint of steel. It was the voice she chided Clark in.

He gulped his beer, "No comment, that's what they say? No comment."

Cat leaned in. "And here we haven't even asked a question."

"We want to know about Gal--"

"--laxy Broadcast System. I know. And no comment."

"Todd we know you've been working as a subcontractor. That you've been intimately involved in the construction."

"And that you abruptly walked out on a six figure contract," Cat added.

Good she paid attention to the notes Kara'd given her on the way to the bar.

Todd flushed. His heart was faster. "What you don't know is GBS. What they do--what they'd do to me."

It was Cat who reached out, a smooth hand on top of his. It was so unexpected it seemed to short circuit his terror. "So tell us. Let us tell your story."

He drank more beer. "It's bad enough to be seen talking to you. More and I-"

Kara put on her biggest smile. The one Martha had taught her. "Pretty smile and charm go a long way Kara. Confuses a man."

"Just point us in a direction Todd. Me and Cat? We're good at what we do, and nothing's gonna come back on you."

He looked from Cat, with her hand on top of his, to Kara, with her best friendly smile.

Good. His heart was beating slower. Breathing becoming less erratic.

He sighed. "There was a city council member. Got all the permits passed personally."

"I know about her."

Cat did not and glanced at Kara quickly in surprise.

But Todd didn't notice. "Well she's a good place to start."

Damn. What the hell had GBS done to have Billings that scared?

Cat wanted to ask more. To wring a rag nearly wrung.

So Kara put a hand on her knee to stop her, and then tried very hard to ignore the gasp, and the way Cat's muscle leapt beneath her finger.

"Thank you," Kara said, "and I want you to keep us in mind...in case you think of anything."

She handed him a card. No name. No giant globe in gold relief. Just a number.

"Totally anonymous," she guaranteed.

***

"Where'd you get the card?"

Kara shrugged, "Had it made. Sources prefer one that doesn't tie me back to them."

"That's almost...smart."

"Kansas isn't all hicks and sticks. My foster mom's a genius."

"You have a foster mother? That's vaguely interesting."

Kara feigns scandalized surprise. "I know."

Cat considered tossing her keys at Kara's head, but with how fast she got to the back of the bar earlier she was sure Kara would catch them.

"I realize Billings is a bit of a drunk, and I'm wonderfully intimidating, but did he seem unusally antsy to you?"

Kara agreed. "When we mentioned GBS it sounded like he was going to have a coronary."

Sounded? "Some subcontractor on a project that large shouldn't be that terrified."

Kara yanked her door open. "It's a good thing Cat. Means we're on to something."

And apparently Cat was the only one concerned with what could happen when they found it out.

***

As a team they worked well together. Kara was so nice that Cat could be cruel, but Kara was also observant, and empathetic. At one point that afternoon she had the city council member’s husband eating out of her hand and Cat wanting to do the same.

His wife had personally seen to the permit approvals GBS needed for their new office complex and while she'd told Kara to go to hell her husband was nervous, distracted, and sure they were there about the gala he was throwing in a month.

"We'd love to come," Kara said with shocking sincerity. "See all the good work you're doing."

"You and your wife," Cat said.

Kara shot her a dirty look while the husband reached for his drink.

He agreed to invitations and Cat was half convinced Kara was was about to pull some kind of confession out of him.

Then the shrill ring of her phone broke the spell.

He jerked back like he’d been shot and Kara looked like she was annoyed by him and embarrassed by her phone all at once.

“Let me just step out and take this,” she said.

Cat used the alone time to press the man for more information—savaging his wife and marriage with sly little cuts. He finally mentioned a diner his wife went to for lunch most days and Cat tried not to crow at the major coup of intel.

Kara never came back.

The husband got uncomfortable and Cat smiled graciously and said she’d see herself out. Then she made excuses for Kara all the way to the door.

Outside Kara was leaning against Cat’s car. She’d pushed the sleeves of her tweed jacket up to her elbows and an impossibly deep furrow had appeared between her brows. The phone was pressed tightly to her ear and she was speaking in a hushed tone that kept Cat from figuring out what was going on.

When the husband was back in the house and out of eye shot Cat held her arms out and in the biggest and most emphatic “what the fuck” gesture she could muster.

Kara watched her. Eyes focused behind smudged glasses. “Uh huh,” she said. “I’m on my way now. Yeah, look someone’s coming—okay. Bye.” She shoved the phone back into her purse. “Sorry about that.”

“You abandoned me. For ten minutes.”

“Something came up.”

“Chats with the boyfriend are not a good excuse.”

“That wasn’t—“ She sighed. “Look something really has come up. I’ve got to cut the rest of today short.”

“But the investigation—“

“Is good until tomorrow. Don’t you have some, like, stuff to edit?”

“Is this related to our story?”

“No.”

Cat squinted.

“Seriously. Totally unrelated.” She nodded like she’d convinced both herself and Cat and then started to walk away.

“Kara,” she called after her, “where the hell are you going?”

Kara stopped looked around. “I was going to…catch a bus?”

“We’re in Highland Park. They don’t do buses. Or trains. Or anything but German cars and chauffeurs.” She jerked her chin at her car. “Come on. I’ll give you a ride.”

“No! No, you have…work. I can’t do that.”

“Oh I assure you this is in my own interest. The faster you deal with whatever you’re dealing with the faster I can get back to penning my Pulitzer Prize-winning story.”

“You really think some TV execs scaring their contractors are Pulitzer worthy?”

“Well, we won’t find out until we finish the story. Would you please get in?”

Kara slumped into the passenger seat. “Thank you,” she said, eyes flickering to Cat and then back straight ahead.

“Not a problem…now where the hell are we going?”

Kara blushed and then gave her the address. That seemed to flip some kind of switch and made it very clear she was in no mood to explain why they had to drive to a middle school.

She sat sullenly in the passenger seat and stared out the window, her usual affable charm completely evaporated.

Cat made an attempt to get something out of her. She brought up Lois—Kara’s only real friend at the Planet. Kara ignored her. Bounced her knee and drummed her finger on her thigh. Her jaw was set.

Cat tried to be polite.

Honestly.

But she couldn’t help it. She took her foot off the gas.

Kara whipped around. “What—“

“I mind being a chauffeur Kara. I mind it a lot. So either tell me what is going on or—“

“Or what? You offered! I was going to take a bus.”

“But you didn’t. You accepted. Which means you owe me.”

Kara narrowed her eyes. “So I’ll buy you a bag of M&Ms tomorrow.”

Cat flushed. “That’s…you can, but first you can tell me why we’re going to a middle school in the middle of the day.”

“Have you ever heard of things being private Cat?”

“Yes. Things can be very private, but we’re partners Kara. We share everything.”

“For one story. That doesn’t earn you my life story.”

“Life story—so it is personal.”

Kara rolled her eyes.

“Your child.”

“Physically impossible.”

“A sibling then? Or a boyfriend who can’t manage kids. Am I getting close?”

Kara’s shoulders sagged and she motioned for Cat to keep driving. “It’s my cousin,” she said.

“So I was close.”

Kara frowned and looked back out the window. Cat resumed driving, and just before she started asking questions again Kara spoke up. “He’s been having some…issues since I moved up here—away from Kansas. His parents suggested he stay with me for a semester.”

“Sounds a little Flowers in the Attic.”

“It’s not. It’s just…”

“Complicated,” she supplied.

Kara nodded. “Very.”

They pulled into the parking lot. “So…you’re barely out of school, working a sixty hour a week job, and raising a child.”

“You make me sound heroic—“

“—Stupid. You sound stupid. Are his parents at least helping you out—financially?”

Kara cocked her head. “Why Cat, are you concerned? For someone other than yourself?”

“I—“

“I’m fine. Really. Now just stay in the car. I’ll be in and out in a jiffy.” She smiled brightly when she said it. Like the kid at the drive-thru handing you your food. She practically flew out of her seat and up the steps to the building. Leaving Cat all alone with no company but the tedious drone of the radio.

She sat there longer than she should have. Staring at the front end of her car and listening to the DJ offer up concert tickets.

Writers and editors. They were different. Editors stayed behind. They watched from afar. They passed judgement and were content to study and shape the news. Not live it.

Writers…writers chased after it. Immersed themselves in it. Writers didn’t sit in the car and wait.

And Cat didn’t wanted to just be an editor anymore. She wanted a byline and accolades and to be something beyond just “that bitch who makes copy cry.”

So she turned off the car and followed.


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing she saw was the vending machine lying facedown on the ground. A janitor was carefully moving around it and sweeping up the shattered glass.

Kara was nowhere to be found.

She started to move around it, but the janitor’s broom stopped her, lashing out to grab errant shards of glass. Cat slipped her sunglasses off and made a show of appraising the scene.

“Kids couldn’t wait for lunchtime?”

He ignored her.

She lifted the hem of her skirt so she could step up onto the vending machine and then over it. But hiking around vending machines like giant rocks in the hills outside of National City wasn't exactly recommended in a pair of heels as tall as Cat's. One caught on her descent and she nearly fell--catching herself at the last minute.

The janitor, thankfully, didn’t comment.

But as she was righting herself she noticed it. She wouldn’t have if she’d just gone another way—taken another path. Told the janitor to move or looked for someone a little more polysyllabic.

Four small dents grouped together on the back of the vending machine. Right at the edge. Points where the metal had pressed inward. As if beaten in by a small hammer or grasped by an impressively strong hand.

She didn’t know why the impulse struck her, but Cat reached out and fit her own fingers into the divots. There was a fifth on the side. The hand theory--

A door slamming down some hallways snapped Cat out of it. She stood back up, smoothed her skirt out and leveled a cool gaze at the janitor.

“One of the students do this?”

The janitor shrugged. “Didn’t see it.”

“It’s heavy.”

“Yup.”

“Only way a child could possibly do this is with a tool. You must have some idea where that tool went?”

“Nope.”

She glared at him. People normally wilted under that glare.

The janitor did not.

Cat hadn’t been in a school since her graduation, and she hadn’t missed much. It still had the uniquely atrocious school smell and despite not being her own school, it was still ridiculously easy to navigate. Signs and the universal design of schools led her right to the “administrative” office. Which was just a tiny rathole of an office with a bench just outside the door.

That was where she found the subject of Kara’s focus.

He was cute and she could immediately see how he was related to Kara. His dark hair was curly where hers was straight, and he wasn’t as tan, but he had the same bright eyes and too big glasses perched on his nose.

He was also very, very sullen, sitting there with chin in hands.

Kara was painfully cheerful.

Cat took a seat on the bench beside him, crossed her legs neatly and tugged at the end of her skirt.

“That was an interesting trick with the vending machine." She caught him, from the corner of her eye. He glanced at her and then stared straight ahead again.

“I always hated science class, but I'd hazard to guess...some sort of lever? A crowbar?"

The boy didn't respond.

“Making it look like a hand was an interesting touch. But next time, were I in your shoes, I would hide my tracks entirely rather than attempt to misdirect.”

One corner of his mouth curled up.

“Little boys aren’t that strong.”

“I am.” His voice was soft, but bright and clear. A bell rung.

“Are you?”

He nodded. “And I can shoot lasers out of my eyes and jump over whole buildings.”

“But can you balance a checkbook?”

He frowned.

“Not so super I think.” She leaned back against the cool wall.

“Are you a social worker?”

She startled. “Why on earth would you think that?”

“They send social workers when you act out.”

“You should really lay off the Picket Fences.”

"Are you a teacher?"

Cat laughed, "God no. Do you know what they pay teachers?"

He shook his head.

"Not enough. I'm an editor, at the Daily Planet."

"Your Kara's boss," he asked, eyes wide.

"Hm. A little. Her partner at the moment. We're working on a story together. Or were until," she motioned down the hall.

The boy's face turned stony.

"Any particular reason why you elected to smash up the school's only vending machine?"

He said nothing.

"Didn't have you favorite snack?"

A statue.

"You didn't have enough to get your favorite snack?"

She studied the boy. His scuffed tennis shoes and cheap jeans and bright eyes, glittering with anger.

"You were proving a point."

His head whipped around so fast she thought she heard a whoosh.

"It certainly makes a statement. But perhaps not the one you meant it to make."

He continued to watch her. Wary. So unlike his obnoxiously friendly cousin.

And she watched right back. Most people wouldn't dare have a staring contest with a child--but Cat liked a challenge.

The boy looked away first.

Cat sighed. "Come on."

"What?"

"Your cousin is no doubt offering to pay for damages and being informed you've been suspended for, what, a day?"

"Three days."

"Three days. You and I don't need to be here for that."

She held her hand out and the boy stared at it as if it were made of glass. He gently took it in his own.

***

Kara and Clark were going to need to have a very important conversation about stranger danger.

It didn't matter if Kara heard his and Cat's entire conversation and Clark knew it. And it didn't matter if Clark was probably as impervious to damage as Kara and nearly as strong. You still didn't wander away with someone you'd just met.

After getting the news of Clark's suspension and writing a check she prayed didn't bounce Kara shuffled outside.

Clark was sitting on the trunk of Cat's car and Cat was leaning against the side. Dark glasses perched on her nose and her mouth pursed in her favorite sour grapes expression.

Cat cleared her throat when Kara came closer and Clark leapt off the car. "I'm sorry." He glanced at Cat, who nodded, "and I want to help pay to fix it."

Kara raised an eyebrow and looked from cousin to coworker.

"We've been discussing personal responsibility while you drain your bank account."

"Helpful."

Cat shrugged.

Non-chalant. So at ease. Kara could barely keep her head above water when it came to Clark, but Cat cut right through.

It would have been impressive if Cat weren't so pleased with herself. She had that smirk on her face as she pushed her sunglasses up her nose.

Self-satisfied.

Kara took a deep breath, "Could you give us a second?"

Cat waved her off and got into the car. R&B started playing. Pointedly.

Kara turned to her cousin. "You could have hurt someone."

"I didn't--"

"But you could have Clark."

"They're jerks--"

"Language. And that's no excuse."

"Cat says--"

"Cat's a coworker. A stranger to you. So excuse me if I don't feel like using her parenting lessons."

Clark was so mad she was sure he was going to snarl. But he just threw himself into the backseat. Mindful enough to not at least rip the door off the hinges.

Cat, whether wisely it politely, didn't say a word. At least until Kara realized they were pulling into the Big Belly drive-thru.

"Low blood sugar," Cat purred and when Kara opened her mouth to mention how she absolutely could NOT afford fast food and the power bill in a week Cat silenced her.

Just another pursing of the lips.

***

Cat didn’t expect a thank you. For the meal, or driving Kara and her cousin home. Kara struck her as too proud a woman to acknowledge the help. Farm girl who pulled herself up by her bootstraps.

But after Clark had run ahead into the apartment building Kara turned in her seat and her big glasses slipped down her nose to reveal startling blue eyes that nearly distracted Cat from the thank you.

She swallowed. “You’re welcome.”

“You didn’t have to pay today, or take us home, but you did.”

“I was promised a partner in this whole GBS investigation. I can’t have one if she’s off playing afternoon special with her nephew.”

“Cousin.”

Cat knew that.

"So tomorrow..."

"I'll be here bright and early so we can get to work." Her eyes flickered to the apartment building. "Will he need a babysitter?"

"I've got it covered--and I can't let you just...drive me everywhere."

"Oh please, Mrs. Daisy. I just don't want to waste time waiting on you and Metropolis public transit."

"Oh...okay." Kara nodded. "Then I guess I'll see you here. Tomorrow."

"At nine."

Kara's eyes seemed to see everything. To bare Cat to the bone. Unsettling. Without the glasses Kara Kent had unsettling eyes. "Sharp."

***

"It wasn't that bad."

Kara groaned and fell backwards, floating far above the apartment and just out of Clark's earshot.

"It really was Martha. He smashed a vending machine in front of the whole school! Forget a dozen witnesses, there were hundreds."

"They really think Clark's that strong?"

"No. Maybe. Cat suggested he used a special crow bar to do it and that excuse seemed to work with the principal."

"Cat? That girl you're always going on about from work?"

"I don't--not always."

Martha grunted, which was North Kansas speak for "I disagree."

"Why on earth was Cat even suggesting things? You giving her your business now?"

"She kind of...drove me there."

The silence was deafening.

"We're sort of...working on a piece together?"

"Sort of and kind of aren't definitive a Kara. Are you it aren't you?"

"We are."

"Got that one girl watching Clark sometimes--"

"Lois--"

"And now this one driving you around like Mrs. Daisy--"

"I think she'd technically be Hoke--"

"How you feel about it?"

Kara floated up right. Honestly she'd been expecting a lecture from Martha--it was something she was great at.

"I'm...okay?"

"You never met a friend you couldn't end it with in a month, and now you've nearly got two. I'm just--I'm proud of you Kara."

Pride was such a stupid notion. Her parents had had pride. And her uncle. Clark and Cat both had it in obnoxious spades--

"Thanks," she said.

"And it's a good thing isn't it? That this Cat was there? Gave you and Clark the out you needed."

Which wasn't the point. The point was her cousin was going through a "fuck authority" phase. Which would have been annoying, but fine, if he were human. Not so fine with him able to bench press tractors.

She sighed. "I guess."

"And now she knows you're watching your cousin she won't bat an eye when you go off and...do what you do."

Small favors.

***

"You introduced Cat to Clark?!"

Lois was horrified.

"It wasn't like I had a choice."

"You could say no."

"Cat is a very insistent woman."

“Christ, Smallville."

Kara frowned. She kind of--no she really--hated the nickname. Though not as much as Clark, who'd pout every time Lois used it.

"You know you're just an intern right? Reporter. Intern. There's a heirarchy.”

"That you're just letting Cat Grant waltz all over?”

"She got Clark to apologize."

"So have I."

"Because he's in love with you. Cat is—“

“He can still smell the sulphur can’t he? From when Hell birthed her?”

"Ew."

Lois shrugged. Girl was insufferable. Great at her job, but insufferable. “What if she tells Perry?”

“She’s not—why would she tell Perry?”

“She hates you Kara, almost as much as she hates me. She tells Perry you’re distracted because you’re raising a kid and…”

And Kara would be screwed. Dream job at the Planet kaput. She wasn’t Murphy Brown. She couldn’t get away with being a single mom. Even if she wasn’t, technically, a single mom.

“So what do I do?”

“Ki—“

“I’m not murdering Cat Grant.”

“I’m saved,” Cat purred.

Kara startled, kicking her desk and only keeping it from flying away by slamming her hands down on top of it. Lois leapt off said desk in alarm. “Cat,” she said, willfully ignoring Kara’s accidental outburst. “We were just talking about work.”

“No you weren’t Lane. Now run along. Your pinched little face exhausts me almost as much as her nervous energy.”

Lois looked like she wanted to stay, but seemed to remember, at the last minute, that she was just an intern. So she left reluctantly, making face at Cat’s back.

“Stop it,” Cat said, eyes on Kara.

Lois jumped, looked abashed, and hurriedly walked away.

“How much of our conversation did you hear?”

“All of it. I thought you had exceptional hearing Kent.”

“I was distracted—and what Lois said. Should I be worried?”

“That I’ll out you as Dan Quayle’s greatest menace?”

“I’m just looking to see if I should keep murder on the table. You know," she pushed her glassed up onto the bridge of her nose, "for professional reasons.”

Cat took up residence on Kara’s desk, and leaned down into her, plucking Kara’s badge off her chest and playing with it. “You could have an entire brood at home Kent, and it wouldn't matter.” She tugged on the badge and the dropped it. “As long as the story is good and turned in on time I really don’t care about your and Clark’s domestic drama.”

“You remember my cousin’s name?”

“Excellent memory. Which means, just so we’re on the same page.” She motioned to the space between them. “I know where you live.”

***

The awe shucks country bumpkin niceness worked well for Kara. A "ma'am" or "sir" always took her far. Judicious use of her powers covered the last bit of distance. It was what had her in line for a senior staff writer position and short listed for all kinds of journalist awards.

But wow, it could not compare to Cat's acerbic tongue. Kara saw everything and filed it away for later. Cat saw it and used it like a quiver full of arrows, artfully finding chinks in even the most expansive of armor.

It worked well the first week of the investigation. Than Cat said something exceptionally snotty to a woman holding a glass decanter.

She flung it at Cat's head and Kara moved to intercept and while her being unharmed could be blamed on cheap glass her saving Cat couldn't be dealt with as easily.

"You okay," she asked, and Cat nodded with wide eyes.

The debutante turned fury charged and Kara smoothly swept the woman up onto her shoulder. The same position she took when Clark went through his terrible fours.

She felt her tiny hands plink against her back and almost felt sorry for the woman. She'd hurt later.

She and Cat left the debutante in a closet in a closet, and called her beloved pool boy to come let her out.

They joked on the way to the car. Cat comparing Kara to a fireman and Kara comparing Cat to a fire. Then Cat said something awful and Kara chuckled and pretended to be scandalized.

But once they were in the car one of those long silences stretched between them.

"Thank you," Cat said. Her voice just barely carrying over the sounds of the road.

Kara shrugged. "You'd do the same."

"Not with these shoulders. Is dead lifting debutantes a sport in Kansas?"

"Sure. Cow tipping, bull riding, and dead lifting debutantes. Lettered in all three."

"You could have had such a successful career, and instead you chose writing. Poorly."

"I always liked English."

Cat raised an eyebrow.

"The...you know the class. I had a friend who was really good at it." She glanced at Cat. Searched her face for some flicker of familiarity.

"God what a miserable thing to be good at. English class."

"What were you good at then? Verbally castrating football players?"

"And teachers. Other students. Also calculus."

Kara kept staring.

"I had a great teacher," Cat said softly.

***

Morgan Edge sounded really familiar and Kara couldn't quite put her finger on why. He was one of the first interviews Cat had arranged. Young guy--about their age. He'd recently inherited Global Broadcasting System after his father died and had rapidly turned it into one of the most technologically advanced broadcasters in the country and one of the most important companies in Metropolis.

He was, in fact, the subject of their story. The meteoric rise of GBS suggested a lot of outside money that the previously cash-strapped Edge shouldn't have had access to. That's why they'd been talking to the elite. Hunting down GBS's mystery investors.

But Cat kept insisting they needed to talk to Edge himself. "I used to know him," she said. "I'm sure we can get something out of him."

Kara would have preferred their first meeting to happen after they actually had more than rumors and hearsay, but Cat had arranged a very casual meeting--at Edge's house. No PR reps or lawyers or people to guard Edge's every word. Just two old friends and Kara Kent and her tape recorder (hidden in her pocket--thank god for the one party consent law in Metropolis).

She'd dressed a little nicer than usual--a pastel dress Martha bought her from Talbot's and a little sweater. Martha (and Clark) insisted that the blazers she usually wore could come off as intimidating.

"The shoulder pads plus those shoulders," Martha had said. And Clark had nodded sagely while eating an apple.

That was fine when she was trying to squeeze information out of cops or robbers or the people in between. Less fine when doing brunch with Cat Grant and a media mogul.

The sweater still itched.

Cat didn't say anything, but she did raise an eyebrow when Kara launched herself into her car and tugged at the bottom of her dress.

And she muttered an "oh God we coordinate" when they walked up the steps to Edge's house and she spied their reflection in the mirror pool.

Cat's stunning navy blue dress and eye-catching necklace did coordinate well with Kara's white and pink number.

Somewhere in Kansas Martha was nodding in approval and had no idea why.

A butler in an honest to God tuxedo answered the door and led them through what had to be the most ostentatious house Kara had ever been in. There was marble and shiny gold everywhere.

Also rugs that probably cost more than her yearly salary and at least one bronze statue that might have been stolen from a museum.

She made a face at Cat who rolled her eyes and refused to smirk.

Which just made Kara grin. A little.

The two of them had been thawing towards each other of late--Cat's sharp edges softening almost imperceptibly when Kara was around.

It was...nice.

Which was why meeting Morgan Edge was the worst possible thing to happen.

It was only after they were led out to the garden, where brunch was spread out and he was lounging in a white suit and enjoying the sun, that she recognized the name.

Cat wasn't the only one to know Morgan Edge.

Kara had too.

They'd all gone to school together once upon a time.

And when Morgan saw the two of them he grinned. "Cat Grant," he boomed, and his eyes focused on Kara behind the orange-lensed sunglasses. "And little Linda Lee." He grinned. "Isn't it nice you found each other?"

It was only for a second, but Kara could swear she heard Cat's heart stop.


	4. Chapter 4

They dated for a hot second in high school. After Linda Lee was shuttled away--never to be heard from again--Cat fully embraced the bitch reputation she'd earned and found the sleaziest, most awful, and most powerful boy to date.

Then she dumped a glass of water on him in the middle of the cafeteria when he put his hand on her ass. His friends all guffawed, Morgan laughed along with them, and everyone steered clear of Cat.

She spent the rest of school sitting on the roof and chain smoking cigarettes and staring at the stars--willing Linda Lee to come back and make everything a little less awful.

But she never did, because Linda Lee, the blond with the bright alien eyes and the gentle smile, was as fake as Morgan Edge's tan. She'd never existed. Just some phantom pulled out of the water and attached to the name of a girl Cat used to despise.

The real Linda Lee, last time Cat checked, was on husband number two and living as a "fashion designer" in Europe.

It was only chance they'd shared a hotel in Switzerland right before school started. Only chance that Cat saw that girl dragged out of the water. Only chance that she'd realized that girl was claiming to be the one she'd already met.

And only chance that Cat's own mother got the mystery Linda Lee expelled.

For a moment, when they'd kissed, Cat had allowed herself to think it wasn't chance. That something ridiculous and romantic like fate had brought them together. Cat and her ghostly girl.

All the way through Morgan Edge's house Cat had been stuck thinking about that other Linda Lee, and Morgan's stupid smug face, and high school.

Yes, she was glad he'd agreed to take the meeting, and she was excited to do her good cop, bad cop thing with Kara--really prove to Morgan that she was fantastic and he was awful--but her brain kept calling up images of Linda Lee.

Images muddied by nearly ten years--but nice ones. A smile. The crinkle of eyes. A warm heart beating against her ear and golden strands of hair wrapped around her finger.

It distracted. Enough that when the butler (seriously Morgan?!) led them out to the patio garden and Morgan smiled she half thought he said Linda Lee.

She blinked.

Kara guffawed.

Then Morgan said it again. And looked at Kara. And she smiled weakly and said, "It's Kara now."

***

Kara didn't need fifty kinds of super vision and super hearing to know Cat was staring right at her. Boring holes into the side of Kara's head like she had Kara's heat vision.

What she did need was for Cat to play along--to not make things more awkward than they already were.

"Kara," Morgan said. He was raising an eyebrow and looking confused and unimpressed.

"I was adopted after I left school. They changed my name. So Kara Kent."

"Still a fan of alliteration."

She shrugged.

"Well, I'm just so glad you and Cat found each other. She was miserable after you left. Losing her best, closest friend."

"Morgan's exaggerating." Cat's voice sounded a little...thick. "I was miserable for all of a week. I moved on. From high school. Which I would love to continue to do."

"No time to reminisce? I thought that's what we were meeting about Cat. An interview with your most successful classmate."

Cat laughed. "Sure. If that's what your ego needs to hear."

And they were off. Little bouts of fond recollections would fall into the conversation--usually Kara would bring them up--but that was just part of her and Cat's rhythm. She was nice. Cat was the...antichrist? She really should have paid more attention when Clark told her about his Sunday school stuff.

Although usually Cat was at least a little friendly towards Kara when they did their back and forth.

Instead of being as cool as the ice in their glasses.

Kara nervously crunched hers and tried to keep up. Tried to whittle information out of Morgan.

But the man was oily smooth.

Kara's charm and Cat's acumen couldn't compare.

And Cat was pissed. Probably not just about Morgan either. Which was why Kara sighed and slapped her notebook shut. Time to be direct--it was what Kara was best at.

"What I'd really like to know is where you're getting all the money for GBS's fancy new building.

Morgan seemed non-plussed. "I inherited more than GBS."

Kara nodded. "A trust you can't access until you're thirty, and an energy company that's in the weeds since the oil and gas crash."

"So unless you're trust officer is being naughty and draining that trust early," Cat started--effortlessly picking up on Kara's line of questioning.

"You're getting your money somewhere else," Kara finished.

One-two punch. The Kent/Grant special.

Morgan scowled. "You two are sitting there, but I don't see any fishing poles strapped to your backs."

"We left them in the car." Cat was as dry as Martha's favorite Chardonnay.

"You should come back when you have them. And my attorney is present."

Kara tsked. "I don't think we need lawyers Morgan. We're all friends here."

"Chums," Cat said. The word rolling off her lips.

"Besides, your attorney might be miffed. Beginning of this conversation you bragged about your new house in Mexico. I wander what I'm going to find when I poke Morgan."

"Probably not churros," Cat said.

Before Kara was poking a bruise. Now she'd peeled away a scab and poured salt in. Morgan was furious.

"What you're going to find, Linda," he said through gritted teeth. "Is a house I bought. All on the up and up."

***

"You showed him out hand!" Cat was trying not to shout. They weren't completely away from the house. Walls and servants had ears and shouting also looked unprofessional.

But it came out as a shout anyways.

"I was trying to get him angry," Kara countered.

"Great job! He's pissed."

"I know." God she looked smug. "Now he's going to do something stupid."

"Or try to murder you--"

"He's not--"

"Or me--"

Kara's mouth snapped shut. "I--it'll be fine."

"Real confident sounding Kent." Or Lee. Or something else. Who knew! Kara--or Linda--was basically a big fat liar.

She got in the car and slammed the door. Out the side of her eye she could see Kara standing there, hands hanging uselessly at her side.

Finally she got in too.

Cat hissed, like their voices would carry past the confines of the car. "You gave him half the piece!"

"I gave him a taste. He doesn't know what we have."

"He knows we're after the money."

"But not the tower too, and what he's building in there."

"It was like you just gave him a crumb trail. 'Here Morgan, shore up these leaks so we can't catch you!'"

"Cat, relax."

She twisted the wrapping on the steering wheel under her hand. Dug her nails into the soft foam.

She didn't bring up the elephant in the car. Couldn't.

Linda Lee had burrowed inside of her, as stupid as it sounded, and she didn't especially want her clawing out.

She put the car into gear and peeled out of Morgan’s driveway. She thought about pinging the security guard at the gate with her front end, but thought better of it.

Silence reigned.

Until Kara opened her fat mouth.

"I'm sorry," she said. Soft enough that the apology was nearly lost to the road noise. "I should have...its just when I saw you, you didn't recognize me! I didn't want it to be weird so I just...kept my mouth shut."

"Well, you failed, because it's really weird."

"I know."

"Just a 'hey Cat, remember me?' Would have sufficed."

"Would it?"

She risked taking her eyes off the road to look at her. "Of course--Kara you…we were friends for almost two years. My mother had you forcibly removed from the school because I kissed you. You think I just forgot? That I'm that heartless?”

Cat had looked for her too—though she wasn’t going to tell Kara that. As soon as she’d graduated she’d made it her mission (that and college). She’d gotten very good with FOIA, and the state equivalent--hunting through adoption and foster care records.

But the trail had gotten cold, and then her very unpleasant senior year happened and priorities shifted.

"Cat..." She was looking at Cat. Half broken. Conflicted.

Cat lifted her chin. Kept her eyes on the road. "Well, whatever. You were a wonderful little oddity--whatever your name is."

"Kara." She took a deep breath and it seemed to steal all the air out of the car. "I would have told you then. It's Kara."

Then. In the library. When Cat kissed her instead of pressed for more answers.

Idiot.

"Mystery solved." Cat tried to keep herself sounding acerbic. To hide the brittle cracks forming inside.

"Did you...miss me?" God Kara fucking Kent. Sounding hopeful. Curious.

"It's been eight years Kara.” She shifted the car into a higher gear as she merged onto the expressway. “What do you think?"

***

She was a monster.

Not because she could bend steel or shoot lasers out of her eyes. She was a monster because she should have told Cat.

Should have said something that first day. Should have tried to grasp what could have been even if it meant a painful and awkward and embarrassing rejection.

Instead she was stuck with Cat being furious and stand offish. She hadn’t even dropped one of her little jokey insults when they got back to the Planet!

Kara got dressed quickly that night. Clark was already asleep, his breath a steady white noise in her ear.

Why had she been so stupid? Cat and Kara? Together again! Eight years later? It had been a dumb idea, and now Cat disliked her even more. Had even more dirt to use if she wanted.

Monster.

That was Kara Kent.

She took to the sky and drifted up and down the seaboard, flying close enough to the water that the spray soaked through her head cover and almost gave her a chill. The fabric snapped against her ears, crowding out much of the rest of the world.

Though...if she wanted to...she could still hear Clark's heartbeat, or the distant drum of Martha. She could even pick out Cat's heart. A habit picked up when they were teens.

She groaned in frustration and plunged into the ocean. It was the only place she could scream with out causing a national disaster.

Such an idiot.

Once she'd screamed her heart out she shot back up into the sky and got to work. Saving cars from crashing and stopping a shoot out. Then she veered towards the GBS tower.

It was only half done. Asymmetrical and sharp looking it reminded her more of the Von-Lark Justice Tower in Argos City than any human building.

She hadn't had time to check it out before. It had been an unchecked box on her to do list, shuttled to the back after Cat's assignment and Clark's suspension. But after seeing Morgan's smug face she was ready to fix something.

Or break it.

And investigating the GBS tower had the possibility for both.

Not that anyone would know it was her. She wore a dark jumpsuit that looked like what the military had worn on Krypton, house seal emblazoned in dark red on her breast. Martha had told her it looked a little fascist when she'd made it, but Kara had insisted.

The only difference was the head wrapping she wore over her face. "You got to protect yourself sweetheart," Jonathan had said.

She'd told him she was invincible. He'd reminded her her identity was not. That attention--the wrong kind--would lead them to Clark.

And as much as she wanted to save Earth, he came first.

She landed on the topmost finished floor, where building materials had been tied down and plastic covers snapped in the wind.

It was completely empty. No security this high up.

Everything groaned and creaked, but there was none of the gentle sway she was accustomed to in such a tall building, and below her feet was a funny vibration. A hum humans would call alien.

But the most disturbing thing about GBS Tower wasn't the size or the hum or the unease of the builders she'd spoken to.

What scared her most were the walls and floors.

Because when she tried to peer through the floor to find the source of the hum she found she couldn't.

They were lined with lead.

***

Cat wasn't really sure why someone was beating out a samba on her apartment door at two in the morning, but she was sure it was going to end in murder.

She wrapped a blanket around herself and ran across the apartment to the door--the night chill nipping at her bare feet.

Then she resisted the urge to scream when she saw who was on the other side of the peephole.

She took a breath--one of those nice long and calming ones she saw people take on TV. Her head pressed against the door.

"Cat I know you're there," Kara called. "I can hear you breathing."

Cat flung the door open, "You cannot."

God that stupid woman and that stupid smug smile. "Got you to open the door didn't I?"

She pushed past Cat, who was too puzzled by Kara's wardrobe to stop her.

Giant black scarf bulging out the top of a bright red overcoat that was way too warm for the current weather. Her hair was a complete mess, tangled and flat like she’d been wearing a bad hat.

And she reaked of the sea.

"I got a lead," Kara said, and Cat noticed the flush high on her cheeks.

"One that couldn't wait until the morning?"

She shook her head. "Not even a little. Do you have an answer machine?"

Cat motioned to the phone and machine in her kitchen.

"Someone left me a message. The voice is all garbled, but the info is good." She fiddled with the tape. Yanking Cat's out and shoving hers in.

"It better be Deep Throat good at this time of night." Cat tugged her blanket tighter around her shoulders—suddenly painfully aware of the difference in dress.

Kara held up a hand to ask her to wait. Pressed play.

"This is Kara! Aaand Clark!"

Kara's embarrassed blush was worth it. Cat raised an eyebrow.

"One second."

She sped through the tape, pausing as a woman droned on about corn and Kansas.

"Your aunt?"

"Clark's mom."

Sped again and there was someone ranting furiously in Russian.

"That, uh, story last month—“

She hit the button. The tape sped. She hit play and a voice rattled out of the speaker. "Why did she swallow a barrel of gravel," Cat asked.

Kara hushed her. "Listen."

"--storing something in that tower. The entire center of the building is wrapped in a foot of steel and reinforced by lead plates."

She looked up sharply and was met with Kara's goofy grin.

"And there is a distinct hum emanating from within.”

Cat slapped the Stop button. "Who is this? Friend?”

Kara shook her head. "I've never known her name. Just a--a source. Calls herself Nightwing."

"That's incredibly stupid."

Kara looked personally offended. ”But she was in the building, and unlike anyone else she's talking."

"And she's an anonymous source Kara. We run with this and Perry will escort us out with his foot.”

"Well, yeah. So we don’t run with the tape. We use it! It's a lot easier to dig if we know where to put the shovel."

She was right. Damn it.

Cat rewound the tape and listened again.

"She sounds out of breath. Scared even."

"You can get that from a fake voice?"

Cat sniffed. ”I’m a study of the human element Kara. It's why I have a job."

"I thought it was because of your m—“

Cat glanced up sharply and Kara looked away.

"Sorry."

"I got where I am in spite of Katharine Grant, not because of her."

"I know." Kara said softly. "I guess--Cat I really don't like your mom." There was so much of Linda Lee in the way she said that that Cat wanted to fling something at the wall. Or kiss away the little frown.

God.

This was how she finally found Linda?

She folded her blanket up and set it on the counter. "Believe me I understand. She's going to be the reason I waste any money my dad left me on a therapist."

Kara fiddled with the buttons on the front of her red coat. ”You could always ship her off to some remote island. I bet that's cheaper than a few decades of therapy."

"Knowing my mother she'd part the ocean just to walk back here and lecture me." She leaned back on the other counter, the marble digging into her hip. “So we’ve got a source—“

“Nightwing—“

“With a stupid name. And she’s been inside the building and seen lead plates.”

“Which means they’re trying to hide something Cat. Using the lead to block X-Rays.”

“A viable theory if people could walk around just shooting X-Rays into buildings. But more likely it’s a radiation barrier meant to keep something in. Which lines up with the hum.”

The frown dug a furrow into Kara’s brow. “You think Morgan’s building a nuclear power plant in the middle of Metropolis?”

Cat shook her head, “I have no idea what he’s doing, but the woman with the stupid name is onto something. Now, more than ever, we need to find the architect behind this thing—or at the very least his plans.”

Kara was still grinning again. Like she couldn’t stop.

“What,” Cat asked, trying to reign in her irritability.

“You just sound so…investigative. Competent.”

Cat raised an eyebrow. “I’m trying really hard right now to not throw you out of my apartment. On your head.”

“I just…there’s this spark Cat, when you’re talking about this. I don’t know.” She looked around the apartment—at anything but Cat. “After all these years I thought it was gone.”

She could only stare. “And I thought you were gone. I win.”

Now Kara’s eyes were on her. Those bright blue alien eyes. Bits of Linda Lee she’d never forgotten.

“That’s not—if you missed me so much why didn’t you recognize me?” Kara came around the isle that had very comfortably sat between them. “I don’t look that different. Or sound—I’m still me Cat.”

“No.” She jutted her chin out—something defiant put between them. “Linda Lee was a charming girl with a big secret and a big heart. You are an irritant. Like sand in my bikini.”

That got a raised eyebrow.

“Linda Lee was clearly upset when my mother had her dragged out of the school and shipped off to a foster home in Illinois. You saw me that first day at the Planet and couldn’t be bothered to say who you were. Don’t act like I’m that one changing Kara Kent. Last time I saw you you were from Indiana, and now you’re from Kansas.”

Why was she—God she was breathing too fast. She’d worked herself up. Gotten in Kara’s space (hard to do with the height difference) and Kara was looming over her, bright eyes searching her face.

“They’re not actually that different—Kansas and Indiana—“

“I’m going to murder you.”

“I missed you.”

She stepped close, hand ghosting up Cat’s hip.

Cat leaned in, “I don’t believe you.”

“You knew about Illinois.”

“What?”

Her other hand played in Cat’s hair like she had a right. “You knew I was sent to a foster home in Illinois. How?”

“I’m good at what I do. And you weren’t there long.”

“No.”

“And when the Kents adopted Kara Kent she wasn’t called Linda Lee.”

“You’ve been busy.”

“First thing I did when we got back to the office.” Kara kept moving in and darting away—like she meant to kiss Cat. But was unsure. Or afraid. Or ready to fly away. Cat took the opportunity away. Brushed her lips softly against Kara’s. “Who are you?”

“I told you—“

She murmured a yes against Kara’s mouth. “A lot of things. The truth would be nice.”

“It’s late.”

“Running, Kent?”

Her breath was warm on Cat’s lips. “I’ve got Clark at home.”

“Your cousin. Never mentioned him in school.”

“That’s because—“ She went still against Cat’s mouth. Somehow her hand had wound into Cat’s hair and her nails were scratching Cat’s scalp and it was all very wonderful until she stopped. “I really do have to go,” she said. Need to leave more serious this time.

Kara tightened the belt on her coat and backed away, popping the tape out of the answer machine as she went. “Raincheck.”

“I hope you die in a fire.”

“Physically impossible.”

“That’s not—“

But Kara was out the door, it rattling shut behind her.

And Cat was forty kinds of hot, bothered, and confused.

God, she hated Kara Kent.


	5. Chapter 5

She was going to stab Lois with her pen. Or maybe just lob it at her like a dart. Even at this distance Cat was sure she could draw some blood.

Lois was slouching in a chair by Kara's desk. Ostensibly she was working--she had a pad and paper in her lap--but really she was just wasting time until Kara got in.

And peering at Cat.

After a moment she wheeled over. "You seem distracted Cat."

Noe she was within perfect stabbing distance. Cat had to grip her pen tighter. "Shouldn't you be fetching coffee or learning how to spell or something?"

"Kara had me doing some legwork on GBS. Waiting to deliver it--"

Cat reached for the paper and Lois yanked it back.

"Hand delivered."

"I'm working on the story with Kara."

Lois wasn't about to fall for it. Largely because, as despicable a human being as she was, Lois was cut from the same cloth as Cat. Ruthless.

Brutally so.

They both knew who'd get credit if Cat handed that research over to Kara.

Cat glared.

Lois gave her a positively devastating stink eye.

So she rolled her eyes. "All right. Wait for the writer when the editor is sitting right here."

"Assistant Editor."

It would be so easy. Just jam the pen right into her arm.

Kara saved Lois's life, rushing onto the floor with leather satchel streaming papers behind her.

Lois raised an eyebrow at the messy commotion, but Cat could just bite her cheeks to keep her own stupid grin in line.

Fucking Kara Kent with her messy ponytail and mismatched socks and ill-fitting blazer.

Her eyes seemed to find Cat's over the top of her glasses and she gave her a smile so bright half the floor was going to need sunglasses if she wasn't careful.

She smiled back, showing significantly less teeth.

Then she noticed Lois had seen everything, and was looking between the two of them incredulously.

The door to Perry's office slammed open. "Kent. My office. Now!"

Kara pushed her glasses up and gave Cat a helpless shrug before disappearing into Perry's office, loose reams of paper still clutched in her hands.

"What. The. Fuck."

Lois explicative was worse than a cold shower.

Cat shuddered and made a show of returning to her own work.

But Lois wasn't easily dissuaded. She rolled into Cat's line of sight, ducking down so she could catch her eye.

"Seriously, what's was that."

She sniffed and pretended to study the papers on her desk.

"Are you and Kara--is this a friend thing?"

"I know the concept is foreign to you Lois, but some people, can, on occasion, be friends."

"With you?!"

***

If Cat's vitals, thrumming in Kara's ears, were anything to go by, she was about to stab Lois with a pen.

Kara, unfortunately, couldn't help. Because Perry wasn't alone. Two stiff looking people in expensive suits stood on either side of him.

Legal.

She watched them warily as she took a seat.

Outside Cat and Lois were back to speaking to each other in harsh tones. Puns were being exchanged. And insults. Kara had to force herself to dial back her senses. and focus on the three people in front of her.

"You wanted to see me sir?"

He sighed, "I got a lousy call this morning Kent."

"Sir?"

One of the suits opened their mouth, "He--"

But Perry cut the suit off with a slash of his hand. "Multiple letters to the editor."

"About?"

She and Cat hadn't been that bad with Morgan during their interview. He'd never have ratted them out--especially with what they already had. And even if he did, Perry knew about the story. He'd back them.

"You puppy mill story."

What? "...Good things," she asked. Hopeful.

One of the suites responded--ignoring Kara's bad attempt at a joke. "Nearly every source in the piece has accused you of misrepresentation." The suit didn't seem particularly happy or upset about the news he'd just delivered. Simply...officious.

"I didn't lie."

"I know," Perry said with another heavy sigh. "But we've got to do our due diligence. Investigate."

"I'm--"

"A damn fine reporter. But for now you're grounded."

"I can't! I've got half a dozen stories I'm working on. Including--"

"I know," he said again. Like his acknowledgement would be enough to calm her down. "Your gonna have to let Cat fly solo. At least until this mess is cleared up."

"This wasn't about the puppy mill Perry. It's Morgan Edge. He got spooked and now he's trying to discredit me. You're doing exactly what he wants!"

The suits both looked at each other.

Perry was grimacing. Whether over Kara's outburst or over her bring right.

"I'd need proof if that were the case."

"You can't just trust me? I've never bungled a source."

"There's always a first Kent, and how's it going to look if I ignore this?"

"It'll look like you believe me!"

"It doesn't matter if Perry believes you Ms. Kent. What matters are the facts. You've been accused of some very serious charges that could leave the Planet open to signficiant litigation."

Seriously? Litigation.

The other lawyer continued. "Until we can determine what went wrong with your last story your suspended."

"It's effective immediately Kent. Go home. Take a trip to Kansas. See the family. Just no work." Perry leaned forward, his chair creaking under him. "At all. I hear you made so much as a phone call and I'll have you ass Kent. We clear?"

***

The door to Perry's office slammed open with more force than usual. Enough that even the veteran reporters looked up at the sound.

Kara stalked out glowering.

Which was--Kara didn't glower. She was obnoxious sunshine compressed into human form.

She slammed the papers she'd carried into Perry's office onto her desk and promptly started shoving other pads and files into her satchel until it bulged comically.

"Everything all right," Cat asked--beating Lois to the question.

"All my sources on the puppy mill story just folded. I've got to 'lay low' until it's sorted out."

"Puppies," Lois chimed in--wheeling over to Kara's desk. "Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"What are you gonna do?" Good God, could Lois, with all her concern and questions, disappear?

"Eat bonbons and catch up on my soaps. I don't know."

Cat wasn't going to wheel over and just insinuate herself like Lois. But she spoke up. "It was Morgan wasn't it?"

Kara glanced up at Cat over her glasses--blue eyes shockingly bright. "That's my bet."

"We have to stop him." God why did Cat sounds so...earnest--even to herself.

"You have to," Kara said softly. Passing Cat the metaphorical baton.

And Cat wanted too--she needed to do it. She needed to prove to Kara, and the newsroom, and Lois Lane, and her mother and every damn person she'd ever met that she was more than nepotism and a red pen.

She was someone extraordinary in her own right.

But Cat was used to having a net when she took a leap. Her dad's money. Her mother's influence. This--what Kara was tasking her with--was jumping without the net and on one there to catch her.

She was terrified, but Kara's steady gaze was like a bulwark propping her up.

Something passed between them. Cat only realized it at the end. When the world seemed to resume around them--a busy newsroom coming into focus.

She could do this.

Kara's cocky little half grin set something on fire in her. "Good luck, Cat."

She left. Perry, and the two suits that just had to be Planet lawyers, watched Kara from the door of Perry's office. Then his gaze shifted to Cat. He stared at her long and hard before going back inside and shutting the door behind him.

Cat was on her own.

Lois rolled up beside her. "So what's the plan--" She shoved her away with her foot--ignoring Lois's yelp of surprise.

Totally on her own.

***

According to the research notes Cat finally snatched from Lois, and her own follow up research--including three calls, two faxes, and one very vague threat--Jack Kanto was a small-time architect who had graduated from Tulane only a few years ago.

The GBS Tower was his first major project--at least with his name listed as primary architect.

And that was unusual. Companies didn't normally spend millions of dollars on high rises designed by a guy fresh out of grad school.

And they certainly didn't go with a one-man firm.

Everything about Jack Kanto's meteoric rise to GBS Tower architect set off alarm bells.

Delicious alarm bells.

Which was why Cat was sitting outside his apartment nursing a gas station coffee with the rain beating down on the roof of her car.

Jack Kanto was a significant person of interest, with or without "Nightwing's" comments about the unusual nature of the GBS Tower build.

God. Nightwing. What kind of asinine name was that?

Cat had researched her too, but come up with absolute nothing apart from a few mentions in Kara's early drafts of other stories and two different accounts of muggers being stopped by a woman all in black who went by the name.

So she was clearly some kind of moronic vigilante. Probably inspired by that Batman character Cat kept hearing about in Gotham.

She sipped her coffee and tried not to gag at the taste. The beans were burned and the mess tasted vaguely greasy--like it sat next to the hot dog rollers too long.

She should have gone home and made her own coffee before starting this stakeout. Maybe stopped by Kara's and begged to borrow her little mobile phone.

But that would have left her alone with Kara, and as confusing as her feelings currently were, she didn't need things muddied by being in close proximity to the woman.

The gorgeous, affectionate woman who just had to brush her lips against Cat's--

She groaned and banged her head against the steering wheel.

What Cat absolutely did not need was a crush. Even one that she'd, technically, carried since high school. Crushes--Kara--were a distraction, and Cat had had enough of those in the last couple of years to last a life time.

She was never gonna get out of her editing hole and moving onto bigger and better stories if she didn't get over silly personal attachments and start focusing on her career.

Or..return to focusing on it.

She'd been focused until she'd found out Kara was Linda Lee, holder of Cat's heart since age sixteen.

And then last night. With the easy kiss and the delectable flirting--

She gulped down more coffee and peered through the rain beading on her windshield.

There was movement at the front of Jack Kanto's brownstone (he owned the entire thing).

Cat snatched her umbrella off the passenger seat and darted out, cinching the waist of her raincoat as she chased after Kanto, calling his name.

He paused at the corner and turned around slowly. Cat stumbled to a stop in turn, startled by eyes. They were so brown as to be black, and in the haze of the rain she honestly couldn't see where pupil stopped and the colored bits of his eyes began. It was profoundly unnerving.

"Yes," he said, vague accent curving his words. That was unnerving too.

"You're Mr. Jack Kanto?"

He raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow.

His overall appearance set off alarm bells. Because he was so impossibly groomed. Not like the yuppies littering Cat's Rolodex, but in an absurdly theatrical way. From the Errol Flynn-looking mustache and goatee to the dark swept back hair. He looked less like a man than some alien species' approximation of a man.

Cat tried to a smile. "Cat Grant, Daily Planet. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"

"Yes." He immediately spun on his Italian heel and started walking again.

Cat kept up, regretting her high heels when a pair of loafers would have been more comfortable.

"You're the Jack Kanto who designed the GBS Tower right? I'm just wondering if you know what's going on at the center of it."

He stopped. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"There seems to be a large amount of lead shielding around the center of the building. Almost like radiation plates."

He narrowed his eyes and Cat had to ignore the feeling of unease that grew in her.

"What did you say your name was again?"

"I'll refresh your memory if you help me out, Mr. Kanto. What exactly does Morgan Edge have you doing in that building?" It was as good an offer as Kanto was going to get. Rat out his boss and maybe come away clean.

But the man was fervent. "Creating the finest center for broadcasting the world's ever seen." Profoundly so.

"Fair--but I read your thesis from Tulane. You specialized in elderly care facilities. Doesn't make me think you're the man to build a skyscraper that's going to--how did you say it--'create the finest center for broadcasting the world's ever seen'?"

His dark eyes narrowed. One long fingered handed tightened around the curved handle of his umbrella. He kept his nails long, but neatly trimmed.

"Morgan and I saw something in one another. Something that urged us both to develop this project."

"So is it his money and your plans? Or is what your building in the center of the tower a brainchild of the both of you?"

"Ms..." He made a show of remembering her name, before giving her a wolfish smile. "Grant. I suppose you'll have to wait and see."

"There wouldn't be a chance for a tour would there? If you're so excited I'd think you'd want everyone to know. My event reporting is exceptional."

"What I want--and Mr. Edge agrees with me--is to transform the world. That's all." He was taller than Cat. A good six feet tall or more. And he used his height. He didn't step too close as to be uncomfortable, but he loomed.

And if Cat hadn't had a mother who could take up whole buildings with a glare she might have wilted.

"Usually when you need that much lead plate the transformation isn't so good."

"And how much lead plate do you think there is?"

That was the real find in her research. The build's lead plate supplier. Her first coup in the piece that didn't include Kara. "Enough for four or five nuclear reactors. That is going to make the public nervous."

"You're going to report it."

"It's my job Mr. Kanto. But I'd love to supply perspective. The Planet is a big fan of getting both sides of the story."

"I don't think--"

Cat yanked her tape recorder out of her pocket and thrust it in his face. "For the record, care to tell me what all that lead is for?"

It was the wrong move and Cat knew it as soon as the recorder was in front of his face. The tremor of fear that had accompanied her through the entire meeting turned into a drum beat in her ear.

Kanto moved very slowly. Precisely.

He wrapped his hand around the tape recorder and Cat's hand too. He squeezed so tightly Cat had to bite back a yelp of pain. The tape recorder clicked off.

"No. Comment."

***

"You did what?"

Clark looked up from his homework in alarm, and then returned to it reluctantly when Kara waved him off.

He was doing it in the kitchen, where she could keep an eye on him as she prepared all four of the chickens for the oven.

It was Martha's recipe--though she would have frowned at the quantity. "Just because y'all can eat, doesn't mean you should."

Cat was on the other end of the phone, ignorant of the feast Kara was preparing and blithe about her own day's adventures. "I asked for a quote," she said breezily.

"You're supposed to do that the day before the story's published."

"Yes, and the story about the lead plates will publish tomorrow if I can finish this copy."

"Wait--you can't just run the story on the lead plating by itself. Not with Nightwing as your source."

Clark looked up from his school work again and smirked. Like he did every time she mentioned Nightwing.

Cat huffed. "Of course I can't. Which is why after you got booted from the team I went out and found a real source. Not a lot of places produce lead plating--especially on that scale."

"You found a receipt." Kara was trying not to sound giddy.

Cat was trying not to sound prideful. "I found a receipt."

They both failed.

One hand full with a baking sheet of chickens Kara had to use her other for the victory cheer. Which ended up being a snap so loud Clark winced and a dog howled in another apartment.

"What was that?"

"I dropped something."

Clark shook his head and Kara considered shooting her cousin the bird. She then juggled the phone, the oven door, and her chickens. "Between this and my threat about the cash flow Morgan is going to flip."

"And seeing as I haven't written a story in months, there's not a lot he can do to me."

"He could claim the receipts were forgery."

"He could try. But he won't and they aren't."

"Smoking gun Cat. Good job."

She couldn't hear much over the phone, just what the measly microphone in the handset provided, and she wasn't about to listen to Cat over the span of the entire city--that seemed rude--but she definitely heard a pause in typing and a slight--slight--hitch in Cat's breath.

"Thanks."

"You know if you want to celebrate you could come over. Clark and I are about to have chicken--"

Clark started emphatically waving no.

"--And we've got tons of room for one more."

He scowled, like whatever tiny amount Cat might consume would cut into his plan to eat two of the roasters in the over.

"Thanks. But I've been making a fantastic salad. Wouldn't want it to go to waste."

An alarm sounded over the phone. Followed by Cat's cursing and the opening and slamming shut of an oven, followed by more cursing.

"Lot of salads set off fire alarms," Kara asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I like to make the croutons myself--shit!"

A pan clattered loudly onto a countertop.

"You burned them."

"They look like little shriveled brownies."

"You could always mash them up for breading on eggplant or something."

"Well thank your Julia Childs. I had no idea culinary arts were such a focus at Kansas U."

"I went to Northwestern and you know it."

"So where's the cooking come from?"

"Martha."

"Very enlightening. I'll now ask every Martha I meet to give me cooking tips."

Kara sighed. "Martha Kent my--Clark's mom. She taught me a thing or two."

"She could teach you more," Clark mumbled. Kara tossed a dish towel at his head.

"Next time she's in town tell her to stop by. I could use some tips."

"Katharine Grant not a big cook?"

"Beyond roasting aspiring authors? No."

Kara heard a knock on Cat's door.

"She does make a good Manhattan though. And a Martini. And Rob Roy. Anything with Vermouth. Hold on I'm answering the--"

The phone clattered to the ground abruptly.

"Cat?"

There was a single piercing scream and then the line went dead.

Clark sat up--laconic pre-teen slouch evaporated.

"Stay here," Kara growled.

"But--"

"I can't watch out for both of you Clark. Stay here. Please."

Her cousin looked conflicted. And she understood--as irritating as he could be sometimes, Clark liked to help. Had the need that seemed to be in the genetic code of every member of the House of El. A driving and kind of primordial urge to look after others.

If Kara hadn't landed at the same time as him--hadn't helped raise him since he was five years old--he might have been some sort of pre-teen hero. Swooping in to save cats from trees and jewelry from muggers.

But a lot of what Kara did late at night was impossibly violent, and she wasn't especially keen on seeing her twelve year old cousin witness that kind of violence.

At least not yet.

Maybe when he was older and better equipped and not prone to temper tantrums that demolished vending machines.

"Be careful," he called out abruptly when Kara was at the window, foot on the sill.

Kara turned back and gave him what she hoped was a smile, but felt more like a grimace.

Generally speaking, Kara was never the one in any danger.

She raced towards Cat's apartment, opening up her hearing and trying to find Cat amongst millions of other Metropolis citizens and over the rush of wind past her ears.

She settled on her heartbeat.

It was reflexive. As easy to locate as Clark or Martha's or even Jonathan's.

It was beating fast and Cat was gasping, her hands slapping against something...another body?

Kara landed in the alley just beside Cat's building and ran. Not too fast. If she was a blur past the old man on the stairs she'd be front line news.

The man waved at her and then grumbled in some language--Italian?

That's right. Cat was part of a wave of gentrifiers to the neighborhood. Shooting apartment prices up and turning old men into impossible grumps.

She fired back an apology and took the stairs two at a time. She could see Cat in her apartment, a rope around her neck and a masked man tugging on it, trying to set up a fake suicide using a very nice looking light fixture in Cat's living room.

Kara stopped herself, for just a moment. Took a single long breath.

Violence was easy for Kara. As easy as breathing or writing or painting.

But years of violence had made Kara quick, brutal, and efficient. Not things she could be in the same room as Cat. Not if she wanted her secret intact and Cat safe.

She had to go slow.

Be--she curled her hand into a fist--human.

She kicked the door open. Using just enough force to knock the deadbolt out of the doorframe, but not enough to knock the door off it's hinges.

In the moment, her blood roaring in her ears, Kara couldn't focus on Cat. She was a relief, glistening with sweat and reaking of fear. An outline Kara's eyes roved over.

Kara had to focus on the other one. The slim man in black ski mask and goggles.

Cat's head was mercifully turned away so Kara charged forward, grabbing the man by the scruff of the neck and throwing him back against the wall. Hard enough to hurt him, but not hard enough to crack the plaster.

Cat leapt when Kara reached for her, heart rate spiking furiously.

"It's okay," Kara whispered, coming around to kneel in front of her.

But Cat clearly thought it was anything but, her green eyes roving over Kara. "How--I thought--"

She tried a little cocky shrug. "I was in the neighborhood."

"I thought I called your apartment," Cat said distractedly. Leaning into Kara's palm when she pressed it to her cheek.

"It's all right. I'll get you untied. We'll call the cops. It will be--"

She heard Cat's scream before she felt the masked man's arm around her neck.

She hadn't heard him at all. No creak of floorboards, or brush of fabric. Not even a change in the steady drum of his heart.

Suddenly his arm was wrapped around her neck. Dragging her back and squeezing.

Hard.

Hard enough that she had trouble breathing. She sucked in a breath and lashed out with her elbow. Not a powerful enough blow to kill, but definitely enough to crack a rib or two.

The attacker just grunted. Squeezed harder.

Cat was furiously trying to free herself from ropes around her hand, gnashing at them with her teeth.

Kara braced one foot against the floor and pushed back.

There was a surprised gasp from her attacker, but he didn't let go. Kept squeezing with strength that Kara would only dare describe as inhuman.

"Your strong," he muttered in her ear. Then he threw her through Cat's window. She cracked into the brick balcony hard enough to almost feel it.

But the worst was how slow she had to move. Cat was watching the fight with wide and terrified eyes. So Kara couldn't just stand up and snatch the man by the neck and smash his head into the floor until the floorboards splintered and his skull fractured.

She had to move with measured speed. Grunting and making a show of standing up. Watching him advance, his boots crushing the shattered glass.

He snatched her up by the neck again, his fingers trying to dig into the flesh of her throat.

"I'm stronger," he uttered. Spinning her around and putting her in another chokehold, this one designed to snap her neck with enough force.

But he wasn't stronger. He was definitely strong. Stronger than any human Kara had ever faced. Stronger than a handful of aliens she met.

But Kara could carry planes and benchpress houses. She wrapped her hand around his wrist and pried his arm away from her neck.

"I don't think so," she grunted.

Then she threw him.

Not too hard. A woman with a little experience in human martial arts could probably do the same.

But the bastard let the momentum carry him directly over Cat's balcony. His short cry muffled by Cat's own surprised scream.

***

Whoever he was he survived a six story fall and landed on his feet. Cat only rushed to the balcony, nausea and exhaustion and adrenalin wrestling inside of her, as he landed.

He took the time to study Kara and her. Then he tossed them a little salute and ran away, not even a limp in his quick gait.

Kara looked about how Cat felt. She smiled feebly before slumping down to the ground, her back to the brick.

"Huh," she finally said.

Cat collapsed onto the balcony next to her. "He tried to kill me." That was...a first.

"Are you...?"

"I'm alive." Miraculously. Her heart was ready to jackhammer out of her chest and it was taking every ounce of willpower she had not to throw up right in front of Kara, but at least she was alive.

"He was after the lead story. Destroyed my records before--" She pantomimed a hanging and Kara actually grimaced. Looking away. That actually helped.

Kara blindly patted Cat's knee. "Good. Good. Records we can get copies of. You--" Her fingers dug in. Briefly.

"I'm unclonable?"

God, that little smile Kara gave her. It was almost enough to settle Cat's nerves.

"We should," she motioned to her phone, smashed on the floor near the door, "we should call the police."

"And say what? A guy attacked you and then survived a six story drop and ran away?"

"I was thinking of keeping the drop out of the story. But Morgan and his little architect crony were clearly trying to shut me up. I'd kind of like to beat them both with the letter of the law."

"Attempted murder is going to be tough to prove Cat."

"You saw--"

"I did, but he destroyed the evidence he was here to destroy. So it's you and me against a billionaire. Perry might have our back for a while, but Morgan's already half way to discrediting me. You accuse him of this and he'll ruin you."

It was positively absurd how right Kara was. The idea of Morgan just getting away with it made Cat want to throw up. "I'm not just giving up because of a little attempted murder, Kara--"

"I'm not asking you to. I say we dig deeper. Go harder. Bury the asshole. But not with this. Let him think he's scared you. Then we'll sucker punch the jerk into the next century."

That was the Kara that irritated and enchanted her.

She waved over at the smashed in door, hanging by a single hinge. "Guess I'll need to get another door until then. I'm thinking something in a shade of reinforced steel."

"Or...don't get mad--" Kara rushed to say before Cat could protest. "You could stay with Clark and I. Morgan would be crazy to come after us both, especially with Clark in the house. We could...protect you."

"You and a twelve year old?"

"Martha gave me a shotgun when I moved up here, and Clark's a better shot with it then me."

"I can't let you use your cousin--a kid--as a shield. That's..."

Barbaric. Ridiculous. Vaguely noble.

"Right. Right. Clark is twelve. And human. And definitely not—but I can't let you stay here, Cat! And I can protect you.” God, the look. Kara wasn’t wearing her glasses and her eyes were startling blue. Like the the apex of a cloudless sky. And so plaintive.

Cat swallowed—her throat suddenly dry.

“Please.” Kara's hand, blazing hot, settled on hers. “Let me help.”

“Just until my door is fixed…and I get one of those emergency alarms. Then I’m back here.”

She dipped in like she was about to kiss Cat in celebration, but seemed to catch herself at the last moment, leaving Cat with a vaguely empty sensation and cool lips.

“I’ll call a contractor for you tomorrow.”

***

Clark was sitting on the couch waiting for them, and Kara knew her little cousin well enough to know he’d been pacing and worrying.

He bypassed Kara and went straight to Cat, wrapping his arms around her in one of his tighter “fit for human” squeezes.

It surprised Cat. Her eyes went wide and her hand hovered over his back like she didn’t know where to put it.

Kara gave her one of what Martha groaned and called her "eye smiles." But Cat eye smiled right back before settling her hand in-between Clark's shoulder blades.

"Are you all right?"

"You're asking her when I'm standing right here?"

"You weren't nearly murdered."

"Technically she was," Cat said dryly. At least she seemed amused by Clark, instead of his seeming callousness about his cousin.

Kara pinched him. "And you're supposed to be in bed."

"You said Cat was staying here tonight, but you didn't say anything about sleeping arrangements. I didn't know--"

She gave him a playful shove. "Bed Superboy. Now."

"Fine." He stopped in the hallway. "I left your chickens in the microwave!"

Cat was looking at her with one raised eyebrow. "Chickens?"

Damn it.

"I was...hungry. You?"

"Nearly being lynched leaves the throat kind of sore. I'd love some water though."

Kara clapped and rubbed her hands together. "Water I can do."

She poured a glass for each of them and then chugged hers. Cat was much more demure. Tentatively sipping and then studying the edge of her glass and saying nothing.

Kara tried to talk. Three times. Her mouth opened and nothing came out.

So she went to her bedroom and started changing the sheets. Going at a slow, human, pace. It had been maddening when fighting whatever Cat's would be assassin was, but now, and with most chores, it was a comfort.

Easing the fitted sheet over each corner of the mattress. Snapping the flat sheet before folding it back over the blanket and tucking both under.

She was so focused on the task she nearly missed Cat getting up from the kitchen and coming softly down the hall.

She watched from the doorway. Leaning against it like she was comfortable there.

Kara smoothed the comforter down. "I was making the bed for you."

"I can take the couch."

"You were nearly murdered--"

"And you were thrown through a plate of glass."

Kara held up one unblemished forearm. "And not a scratch on me."

Cat frowned. "I feel like I'm painting a target on your back. I don't want to steal your bed too."

"We could share."

Cat studied her. Lips pursed. "You sound too earnest for that to be a come on."

"I recall sharing a twin with you more than once in high school." She grabbed a pillow and tossed it over the bed to Cat. "And we didn't get up to anything."

Cat studied the pillow instead of putting the case in the middle of the bed on it. "That was before we kissed. Or you saved me from a masked assassin."

"Turn you on?"

She lobbed the pillow at Kara's head. "Got any pajamas in this closet of a room. Or just more lousy come ons?"

"I do, in fact, have both."

"You're awfully smooth for someone who struggles to walk in a straight line ninety percent of the time."

"Oh you didn't know? The clumsiness is all an act."

She hummed. "And the faith in others? All that irritating optimism?"

"That's probably more me."

"What about the shoulders?"

"The shoulders?"

Cat nodded. "I can never figure out if they're Dynasty run amok or real, because I know for a fact you do not hit the gym."

Kara's mouth went dry. "You," she cleared her throat. "Keeping tabs?"

Cat was biting her lip and studying Kara with the kind of intensity that sent something hot straight through her.

Then Cat shook her head. "We're punch drunk."

"Or inevitable."

"Maybe we're both Kara, but right now?" The last half of the sentence was soft. A mute plea for setting aside their---whatever it was--for another day.

Obliging was the least Kara could do.

***

Sharing a bed together it would have been easy to find each other in the night. Cat could feel Kara's warmth straight through the sheet and hear her breath come in slow and study puffs. When her eyes adjusted to the darkness she could watch Kara's chest rise and fall and the moon glow in her hair.

But the girl--the woman--was Trouble.

So Cat slept on her side, hugging a pillow and willing herself to ignore the presence at her back. The safe and sound and comforting presence.

That could get across town in minutes, eat two chickens in a row without getting sick, and fall through plate glass without a scratch.


	6. Chapter 6

Kara's skin was golden in the morning light. Her hair like the sun itself. The bright blue of the sky was in her eyes and she smelled like sheets dried on the line.

She was as close to heaven as Cat was going to get.

And she was currently leaning over Cat. A firm arm braced by Cat's head, and and an otherworldly smile on her lips.

"Hi," she said. Voice sinfully low.

Cat's leg, definitely of its own volition, slid out from beneath the sheet to brace against Kara's thigh.

"Hi."

Kara lowered herself down until her mouth was exquisitely close to Cat's. Her lips so near Cat was sure she could feel them grazing her own. "Sleep well?"

Cat dragged her fingers up and down the bicep near her head and tried to ignore the Kara's other hand, ghosting over the bare skin between the bottom of Cat's shirt and top of the her borrowed pajama pants. "Anyone ever tell you your like a furnace?"

Kara shook her head before tilting Cat's chin up with her nose and grazing her teeth along that one particular pulse point on Cat's neck.

Her voice rumbled through Cat. "Not a lot of sleepovers."

She nipped and Cat groaned. Her nails dug into Kara's arm. She grabbed a handful of Kara's hair and pulled her back.

God.

Just. That smile, and those suddenly dark eyes, and the blush blooming on Kara's chest and blossoming on her cheeks.

It was wearing away the very flimsy wall Cat had tried to hastily construct between them.

"This usually isn't how they go."

"No?"

She tried to dip down again, but Cat maintained her grip, even if she kept sliding her leg agonizingly slow against Kara's. Desperate for more friction and terrified of it too.

"No. Sleepovers involve makeovers, and bad games, and talking about boys."

"I don't want to talk about boys. I'd much rather--"

She lowered herself down for a kiss, and Cat was so impressed by her remarkable upper body strength (and the bare pads of Kara's fingers tracing nothing on Cat's waist), that she almost didn't get her hand between them in time.

But she did. A very physical barrier between Cat's lips and the lips she very much wanted to taste.

She whispered against her own knuckles. "I'm still mad at you, Kara."

The hot, wet, agonizingly slow kiss pressed to her palm nearly destroyed Cat's resolve.

"Movies tell me there is a great way to express that anger."

She balled her hand around Kara's mouth, fingers dipping into the hollows of her cheeks. "I'm serious."

And that was all that was needed. Kara swiftly rolled away and muttered an apology, and Cat rushed to the bathroom before heady conversations or awful awkwardness could ensue.

She pressed her back to the door and her hand over her chest, like just five fingers might keep her heart from beating out from her ribs.

There were footsteps. She could see the sliver of shadows as Kara came to stand on the other side of the door.

Cat closed her eyes.

When she opened them again Kara was gone.

***

Kara, somehow, didn't own a hair dryer or a hair straightener, so Cat's hair was wet and curly when she finally stepped out of Kara's bathroom and followed the promising smell of coffee into the kitchen.

Kara's mug froze at her lips when she saw Cat, and if she hadn't thought Kara was attracted to her before, she was sure of it now.

"Coffee," she said with a raised eyebrow.

Clark, eating half a box of cereal out of a mixing bowl, snorted.

"Yeah!" Kara was hasty and clumsy and Cat had to fight the urge to wrap her arms around Kara's waist and soothe her with a kiss. A gentle one on her neck. Right above the collar of the dorky tweed blazer she was wearing.

Clark swallowed a mouthful of what looked like Raisin Bran. "How'd you sleep?"

Kara shot him a dirty look while she poured Cat a mug.

"Your cousin sleeps hot."

"Ma says we're both furnaces."

"Your ma is probably right."

"You can sleep on the fold out couch you know? Ma bought it so she wouldn't have to pay for a hotel room when she's in the city."

Kara turned so red she matched the mug she passed to Cat.

"I was scared," Cat said dryly, eyes focused on Kara.

"And Martha always complains about her back when she sleeps on it," Kara said. "I wanted Cat to get a good's night rest."

Clark, either an obnoxious younger sibling type, or oblivious, ignored the look passing between Kara and Cat. "You could have slept on it then. You're practically--"

"School!" Kara grabbed Clark's backpack and shoved it into his lap. "You've got school, and you don't want to be late."

"I'm never late--"

"Traffic. Traffic can be terrible. Time to hustle!"

She shoved him out into the hallway and ignored his yelp of protest. Cat remained in the kitchen, sipping her coffee and trying to decide if she was flattered or annoyed.

When Kara stumbled back into the room Cat was leaning against the counter and waiting and she'd settled for being tentatively charmed. "Guess with all the drama last night you forgot about the couch?"

"To be fair, I was going to sleep on it, but you, you know, insisted I share the bed."

"And it never occurred to you to point out the couch was a fold out?"

"It did. But we were already cuddling, and you were sleeping, and...I was selfish." The cuddling had happened quickly and naturally and Cat had been to comforted to care about why she shouldn't have.

She hummed. "Fine. But tonight you can sleep out here. I don't need any more wake up calls."

Kara looked chastised. "Right."

"As wonderful as this morning's was."

It earned her a timid grin and Kara looking at her over the rims of her glasses. "Yeah?"

Cat bit her lip. "You," she swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. "You could teach alarm clocks a thing or two."

Kara came closer. "Just, uh, let me know if you need a wake up service again. You know. When you're here?"

Kara's ability to be so smooth and so stupid at the same time was frustratingly endearing. Cat planted a quick kiss on her cheek--careful to avoid Kara's very kissable lips. "I'll try," she said, and her voice sounded awfully throaty, even in her own ears.

"What's your plan for today?" Kara was doing that thing where she loomed over Cat, and her voice was low and she was watching her like Cat somehow held the answer to every question Kara'd ever posed. But her hands were balled up into fists and shoved into her pockets and her legs were planted squarely apart.

She was trying so hard.

So Cat stepped away. "Back to the lead supplier to see if I can get another copy of the order forms for the GBS building."

"They tried to murder you last night to keep the last copy out of the press. You really think they'll hand them over again?"

"Probably not, but due diligence."

"I can go with you."

"Perry made it very clear that you weren't to be working."

"So I'll wait outside. I don't think he's going to get mad if I'm just around to keep you safe."

"Sound awfully sure of yourself. Toss one assassin of a building and suddenly your a hero?"

Kara's frown made her look very serious. "Cat."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. But no talking to anyone. Got it?"

"My lips will be sealed."

***

Kryptonian parents and Kansas farmer foster parents had instilled in Kara a very powerful work ethic. She was not one to take a lazy Sunday, and usually found herself tackling a painting or fighting crime or just investigating a story to fill her time.

But when Cat wandered into Kara's kitchen with damp curly hair, no make up, and a blousy silk shirt she hadn't quite finished buttoning Kara had a sudden desire to never leave the apartment again.

If Clark hadn't been in the room, mercilessly teasing her, she might have even tried to realize those desires.

On the counter.

And the floor.

And her bed.

Repeatedly.

Clark was either or saving grace or the worst thing to ever happen to her. She wasn't sure.

But the fantasy that had popped into her head, fully formed at the sight of Cat, didn't go away. It lingered like a double exposure in her mind. Coloring their drive an hour out of town to the lead supplier.

"You're awful quiet today." Cat had put on a big pair of black sunglasses and even without makeup Kara thought she looked very glamorous behind the wheel of her four year old Volvo.

"Thinking about the assassin," she lied.

"Me too." Damn it. "He was wearing goggles. Don't you find that odd?"

Kara had noticed, but hadn't really thought anything of it, what with being too busy fighting the preternaturally strong assassin.

"Can't really say I pay attention to the wardrobe choices of assassins."

"Goggles would obstruct his field of vision. Especially tinted ones. I would think--if you're trying to kill someone at night you'd want to be able to see clearly."

"So why do you think he was wearing them?"

"That creepy architect Jack Kanto has very distinctive eyes. I would have instantly recognized them with or without the mask."

"But if he was planning to murder you. Why go to all the trouble of protecting his identity?"

"He's a very careful assassin? I don't know. What's your theory Sherlock?"

"I don't have one when it comes to the goggles. I'm more concerned with the guy being able to walk away from a sixth floor fall."

Cat looked away from the road long enough to glance at Kara. "People are full of surprises, Kara." And the way she said it triggered a flicker of worry in Kara. Because Cat sounded positively enigmatic.

When they got to the warehouse that had supplied the lead plating Cat insisted three times that Kara should keep quiet and, if possible, look no one in the eye.

So she slouched down by the door and tried to look like she didn't care about the way Cat was flirting with the owner.

And she was flirting. A lot. There were breathy sighs and tinkly giggles and the more Cat flirted the more Kara slouched.

Then it became clear, at least to Kara, that the guy wasn't going to actually give Cat the orders. It was the way he started sweating, glistening under the buzzing fluorescent lights. And the way his heartbeat picked up, like he was nervous.

Kara rooted her phone out of her pocket and made an announcement about taking a call. Then she stepped outside, made sure she was alone, and leapt up onto the roof of the office building.

***

Kara.

Broke.

In.

At least that's what Cat would call it. Was it technically breaking and entering if she sauntered into an "employee's only" part of the office while Cat stood there and watched it happened?

Bob, the lovely owner of Manderson Supplies, seemed confused as Cat found herself forgetting words.

He started to turn around, which would have led to him seeing Kara rooting through his desk, which would have, in turn, led to something very, very bad. So Cat yelped, and when he focused on her she smiled and did one of the things she did best.

Chat.

But usually she didn't have someone in her line of sight pantomiming gagging when she told a the man she once had a boyfriend with a truck like his. Or rolling her eyes when Cat revealed her considerable knowledge of lead plate usage.

When they were out of Bob's office, and safely away, Cat was going to skin Kara alive.

But with Bob between them she had to focus on her remarkable ability to have a conversation with anyone while Kara rooted around in file cabinets, wincing whenever it made too much sound.

Cat would raise her voice then. Or give her biggest smile.

At one point she even took his hand, sweaty and cool in hers.

Kara found the order and held up a disposable camera. Then she slipped out of the room, presumably to take photos like she was the next damn Leibovitz.

Cat did a very good job of keeping Bob busy when Kara returned, looking smug and pocketing the camera. She slipped the orders back onto Bob's desk and then leapt up through a vent in the ceiling as lithe as a cat burglar.

So, it was definitely breaking and entering.

When Cat slumped back into her car, her legs shaky with all the adrenaline, Kara grinned and wagged the camera in front of her.

"Proof is back in our ha--"

Cat snatched the camera from Kara and proceeded to thwack her repeatedly with it. "Are. You. Out. Of. Your. Mind! You could have been caught! We could have been arrested!"

"We needed the records!"

"Legally!"

"It's not like they destroyed the last ones legally. They tried to kill you Cat." It was the way Kara said it that deflated Cat. The fury and hurt.

Like she cared and has just been trying to help.

"There's..." Cat squeezed the steering wheel and tried to calm her racing heart. "There's ways to stop them that don't involve breaking the law. What we've got now--I can't give that to Perry."

"Why not? As far as anyone knows you could have made copies. No one has to know where those pictures were taken."

"Kara."

But Kara was giving her the most maddening knowing look and one corner of her mouth was crooked up into the beginning of a smile. Like she knew she was right and was just waiting for Cat to agree.

She was filled with the urge to beat her with the camera again, and only stopped herself because she didn't need to break the camera and ruin the film.

She slipped it into her purse. "So you know what this means?"

"The story is saved?"

"You're done being my bodyguard."

"Cat!"

She patted her purse. "I have to go write the story and find someone in Photos to develop these. WHich means going to the office, which you are currently banned from."

"You seem way to happy about me being banned from the office."

"I'm being hunted by an assassin and forced to live with an idiot Kara. I have to find the simple pleasures where I can."

"I can stay downstairs in the lobby cafe if you want. Keep my eye open for creepy architects?"

"Or you can do what Perry originally suggested. Take a break Kara. Let the rest of us save the world for a change."

***

Kara bought a giant bag of M&Ms, the largest Slurpee available, and took up a roost on top of the Planet.

It was one of her favorite vantage points in the city. There were taller buildings, and some of them probably had better views. But she liked how the giant bronze logo creaked in its sluggish rotation, and she was sure there wasn't a comfier ledge in the city.

It also let her keep an eye on Cat, who was eight stories down and muttering to herself as she tried to type.

From what Kara could gather Cat was an exceptional writer prone to insane writer's block. She went through four or five versions of a sentence before smashing it into the typewriter, and frequently ripped the whole thing out and started again, muttering about how stupid she was.

Kara after draft number ten Kara put her Slurpee on the ledge beside her and fished her phone out of her pocket.

Cat answered on the first ring. "You're distracting me."

"How'd you know it was me? I could have been a source. Or Perry."

"Educated guess," she said dryly.

"How's it going?"

"Again. Distraction. You."

"Oh come on. It can't be that bad. Ninety percent of the story are the records."

"It can be that bad. This is my first major scoop. Ever. It has to be perfect."

"I bet your overthinking it," Kara said softly.

"I'm not."

"Read what you have."

"You're not supposed to be working."

"I'm not! I'm being a supportive friend."

She watched, through eight floors of steel and cement, as Cat narrowed her eyes. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," she said flatly.

"Nice. Ripping off a classic. Bold move Grant."

Cat's sigh was a tremulous shudder over the phone. "Every time I try to start this thing it sounds stupid. Perry's gonna spike it. Or worse he's gonna pass it to someone else. Put me back on editing fluff and writing lonely heart columns until I'm gray."

"So forget the intro."

"I--"

"No. Seriously. Forget the intro. Just start talking about what you found. Finish that and then go frame the piece."

"That's assuming I'll figure out a good framing device at some point. Right now all I have is 'bombs are bad.'"

"So? Bombs are bad. And so is lead plating and scary architects. You got your story Cat. You just need to get out of its way."

"What if Perry hates it?"

"Please don't tell me that you, Cat Grant, meanest and smartest editor I've ever meant, are scared off the paternal ball of fluff."

"He'd fire you if he ever heard you call him that."

"He hasn't yet. You'll do fine Cat. All you have--"

Something terrible assaulted Kara's ears. A screeching noise that seemed to vibrate in her bones and play out against her teeth. Her phone slipped from her hand as she grabbed the ledge with both hands to keep from careening over.

Distantly she heard Cat calling out in concern.

But there was another voice more present and living in her head. Clear and just above the awful hum.

"Now that I have your attention," the voice--male-sounding--said, "we should meet. Front entrance of the Daily Planet. Come within the next two minutes or I'll level the building and all your coworkers with it."

Then the noise abruptly stopped.

Kara could only afford a few moments of panting. Her thoughts had been scattered by the sudden assault and the pain was still buzzing through her.

And Cat was calling out for her over the phone.

She picked it back up with a trembling hand. "I'm fine," she croaked.

"Jesus Kara. I was actually worried. What just happened?"

"N--" She swallowed. "Nothing. It was a...a migraine. You know. Sudden onset."

"Do you ne--"

"I've got to go. Good luck on the story."

She hit the END button before Cat could protest and then kicked off the building and descended down quickly.

She spied the man who'd called out for her standing on the steps, unmoved bye the stream of people filing in and out of the building. In his very flashy and expensive suit and with that ridiculously well coifed hair he stood out.

It was instinctual--knowing it was him.

"That was fast," he called as Kara came closer. He was holding an umbrella by it's ornate handle, fingers dancing across the curve of it. "Were you nearby?"

She lifted her chin. "How'd you know I'd hear your message?"

"A lot of creatures wouldn't be able to tell the difference between you and a human. Especially when you're pretending to be one of them. But I always had a particular fondness for your species."

Kara's kept her hands in careful fists.

In her first year of school they'd all learned how to breathe and calm a tantrum. To school emotions that could disrupt rational thought. Zal Tor had been terrible at it and when Kara mocked him he'd leapt across her desk and had to be pried away by a teacher and a kalex.

"Your Kryptonian," the man said simply. "Kryptonians had exceptional hearing, but in this atmosphere, with that sun--you can hear children laughing on the other side of this planet can't you?"

She kept her hands in those tight fists. "What are you?"

He held a gloved hand out and waited for her to take it before saying, "Kanto."

She didn't let go--using her considerable strength to keep him in place. "Cat's creepy architect."

He squeezed back, and there wasn't even a flicker of discomfort when Kara squeezed harder. "And her would be assassin. Thank you for stopping me, by the way. I never would have realized what you were if you hadn't intervened."

Using their joined hands as a fist Kara stepped closer. They were the same height, but with her shoulders squared a subtle bit of flight she could still seem larger--more intimidating. "And what about you Kanto? Still haven't told me what you are."

He smiled. "A man who knows when he's bested 'Kara Kent.'"

Kara eyed him suspiciously, not believing his smooth bullshit for a second. She dropped his hand. "You're giving up."

"This round? Of course. By now you've already gotten your hands on the records again haven't you? Passed them off to the human for publication."

"Tomorrow morning the entire city will know what you and Morgan are up to."

"They'll have an idea." He sighed. "Which certainly makes my job more difficult, but I'll figure something out." His smile was tooth and bright like an old Hollywood star's. "I always do."

"If you come for Cat again I'll stop you."

He wagged his finger. "You've made that very clear. But don't worry, your little human will be safe. It made sense to kill her before the story was published. Afterwards would just be bad press." He was actually acting coy.

"Whatever plans you have? Cat and I will figure them out."

He shook his head with a wince. "That's where you're wrong. Ms. Grant seems to be a wonderful little reporter, but I suspect she wouldn't have gotten as far as she had without your assistance. Which is why we're meeting. I came here to kill you Ms. Kent."

"You can try."

"No. I can succeed."

Kara coughed.

Kanto feigned concern. "You really should be careful where you put your hands."

She coughed again. And it was only with the second cough that Kara realized what was happening.

Kara didn't cough.

Not since landing on earth.

The world, briefly, tilted.

Kanto stepped close, holding Kara up when her legs suddenly decided they weren't crazy about working. "The gloves I'm currently wearing are laced with Kernian Alacora. A toxin of my own design. Fatal to something like ninety-nine percent of all living creatures in this dimension." He laughed. "I've spent half a millennium perfecting it."

"You--" She wrapped her arms around him to try and remained standing.

"I've just poisoned you Kara Kent, and unless your more invulnerable than I think you are, you should be dead by this time tomorrow." He leaned in to whisper in her ear. "You'll be joining the rest of your people very soon."


	7. Chapter 7

Perry had smirked when he saw Cat's copy. If he'd still smoked he would have chomped on his cigar in satisfaction.

"This is good, Cat. Nasty, but good."

"Not too nasty." She said it like an assertion even though it was a question bouncing in her chest.

"Way too nasty. I love it! Those GBS assholes have been covering our garbage for years now and failing to credit. They _deserve_ this kind of flack. You got copies of the records?"

She handed them over and Perry actually shook her hand.

Not a shoulder pat, or the awful paternal hug she'd gotten when he'd hired her. A handshake.

"Go home. Rest up. Tomorrow GBS is gonna light a fire under our asses and you'll need to be on the front line."

She tried not to grin as she made her way back to her desk. There were still two hours left on the clock, but she didn't care. She'd just done it. Written the piece that was going to change her whole damn life.

Lois caught her after she'd bagged up her things and was headed towards the door. "You talk to Kara this afternoon."

Kara's hiss of pain and abrupt hang up flashed through her mind. "Why?"

"I had a question about a piece she had me on, but she's not answering at her house or on her cell."

"She had a migraine. She's probably just sleeping it off."

"If you talk to her tell her to pick up her phone."

"Why--I don't talk to Kara, Lois."

The girl rolled her eyes.

But Kara's apartment was eerily quiet when Cat walked in. She'd expected the TV playing cartoons for Clark, or the early news. Maybe Kara in the kitchen over a simmering pan of sauce.

She'd expected something homey, but instead got a place that was quiet. Like the home of the dead after they were gone.

The worry she'd very confidently pushed to the back of her mind to finish her story returned suddenly.

"Kara," she called cautiously.

There was a whoosh and Clark was standing in the hallway, water beading in his dark hair and spotting his red shirt.

"Clark, what's--"

"Kara's sick."

She barely had time to frown before Clark was dragging her down the hall, through Kara's bedroom and into her shower.

Kara was huddled under the spray, fully clothed and as pale as the white tile floor.

She didn't seem to notice Cat or Clark--her face was tucked into her knees and the only reason Cat knew she was alive was the rise and fall of her back under her soaked shirt.

"Call an ambulance."

"I can't," Clark whispered.

Cat rounded on him and the boy, who she'd known to be surly, churlish, and brave, stepped back.

"We don't get sick."

"Clearly you do. We need to get her to the hospital."

"No," Kara croaked, her voice barely carrying over the spray. "I can't go to the hospital."

"We can call my mom," Clark announced.

Cat crept closer to Kara. "Is your mother a doctor?"

"No, but--"

Kara's skin was cool to the touch. "You need to see a doctor," Cat said low enough that Clark wouldn't hear.

Kara shuddered against Cat's palm. "Jeremiah. Clark? Find my phone book. Call Jeremiah Danvers."

Clark was gone again, fast enough that Cat could have sworn she felt a breeze.

"Kara? We need to get you out of the shower. Okay?"

Kara seemed to agree, but made no effort to move. Not until Cat caught her by the bicep and pulled her up.

Then her arm, surprisingly strong, snaked around Cat's waist. She was heavy as she leaned into Cat. And shivering violently.

Cat pivoted her around onto the toilet and tugged at her shirt--skintight from the shower. "We've got to get you out of this stuff and into bed."

Kara, woozy with whatever was happening, grinned.

Cat pinched her. "Not the time."

"Sorry."

She thought she did a very good job of not taking advantage of Kara's altered state. She didn't look at the beautiful expanse of smooth tan skin...much.

And she definitely didn't think about the bra she had to remove or the way Kara's breath hitched when she did so.

"Not how I imagined it either," Cat muttered.

Kara's hand caught on the small of her back and her fingers dug in lightly. Then her face was pressed to the crook of Cat's neck and Cat's struggle to make this all very professional grew exponentially more difficult.

"Kara," she warned.

She felt Kara's nose, cool from her time in the shower, press to her throat. "I'm sorry."

Cat dropped a light kiss onto her sopping head. "Come on," she said. She threw Kara's arm over her shoulder and forced her to stand.

They made it back into the bedroom at the same time as Clark whooshed back in from the other room. "He's on his way," Clark said--a little out of breath. "Mom too."

Kara, presumably because she was blind without her glasses, peered at her cousin. "What?"

Cat look back and forth between them. "Doesn't she live in Kansas?"

"Yeah but..." Clark fidgeted like a kid telling a big fat whopper would. "She said she was coming in. Today. For a visit. Remember Kara?"

"Right..."

"I'm gonna take a bus to the airport. To meet her."

"That's ridiculous I can go pick her up." Cat started for the door but Clark stepped in front of her.

"No! No you should stay here with Kara. I can't...she needs someone who...I'll go to the airport."

"You're a kid."

He stood a little taller. "I'm twelve."

"That's--"

"It's fine," Kara said. "He'll be fine. He's done it half a dozen times before."

"Kara..." There was no way that was true.

"Really," Kara said.

"Fine. Take your cousin's phone, and if you're not back in two hours I'm calling the police."

Eyes bright Clark nodded and dashed away, leaving Cat with a completely invalid Kara.

"How are you feeling," she tried.

"Cold still."

Cat found as many blankets as she could and tucked Kara in, then sat next to her on the bed and held her hand.

It was like ice in her own, and trembling constantly. She tried to kiss Kara's knuckles, but they rattled against her teeth and she had to drop it.

"I really think I should call 911," she whispered. She combed her fingers through Kara’s wet hair.

"I'll be fine," Kara chattered.

“You don’t seem fine.”

“I’m just cold.”

“Do you have a hot water bottle? I could—“ She tried to stand to go look for one, but Kara caught her wrist and wordlessly pulled her back down.

Cat didn’t offer and Kara didn’t ask. She simply kicked off her shoes and scooted under the covers and pulled Kara close, tucking Kara’s head under her chin.

“This better not all be a ploy to get me to forgive you?”

In the small space Cat was acutely aware of how damp her own clothes had gotten pulling Kara out of the shower. She pushed her pants off and shoved them towards the end of the bed.

“Also you better not die before I can forgive you.”

Kara coughed, a hot puff of air against Cat’s throat.

She tried to pull her even closer, digging her fingers into Kara’s shirt and holding on tight.

“What happened,” she asked into Kara’s hair.

Kara’s hands slid under Cat’s shirt between them, fingers searching for more warmth. “I’ll be fine…hopefully.” Her voice was soft enough that Cat had to strain to hear it.

“Are you drunk? I knew a girl in college who got this sick once because she was drunk.”

“‘Knew?’”

She rubbed her hand vigorously up and down Kara’s back. “Oh my God. Yes. It was my girlfriend. My mother thought you were a phase and I had to prove her wrong.”

Cool lips pressed to the point where Cat’s neck met her collar bone. “Appreciate it.”

***

Having never been poisoned before, Kara wasn’t really sure what to expect. She knew medicine wouldn’t help. She and Jeremiah had yet to find a substance that could affect her.

So she’d stumbled home via subway, too woozy to fly, and crawled into the shower to wash away whatever was left of the poison. The water as hot as the heater would put out.

She woke up with Clark hunched over her and begging her to open her eyes.

And then Cat, who bundled her up and held her close and didn’t seem to care that she was a shivering mess of an alien.

And when she opened her eyes again a pair of scared brown ones peered back. Alex Danvers, Jeremiah’s three year old daughter. She patted Kara’s cheek. “You sick?”

“A little.” She moved a hand out of the cocoon of blankets to brush the hair out of Alex’s eye with her knuckle. “Why are you here?”

“Clark called” She leaned in close. “Daddy drove _real_ fast.” And probably brought Alex with him because Eliza was still up in the mountains at the observatory.

A thick hand settled on Alex’s shoulder and she looked up before disappearing from view. Then Jeremiah appeared, face pinched in concern.

Cat was hovering over his shoulder.

“You’re cute,” Kara said.

Jeremiah smirked then looked back at Cat.

She rolled her eyes. “Illness apparently turns her into an affectionate idiot. What’s wrong with her.”

“That,” he pressed his hand to Kara’s forehead, “I don’t know. Give us a second?”

Cat leaned over him, “If he tells you to go to the hospital you have to go to the hospital.”

Kara gave her a thumbs up that Jeremiah pushed down when Cat left the room.

“She’s cute too,” he said.

“Hey.” Kara wagged her fingers. “You’re married.”

“You’re not. She the one you never shut up about?”

“Guy gets you drunk babbling _one_ time and remembers every single thing you say.”

“I had to take advantage of the moment Kara. You know how much it cost to make something that could get you drunk?”

“A lot.”

“A lot.” He frowned. “What happened?”

“Bad guy poisoned me.”

“Physically impossible.”

“That’s what I thought too.”

***

The watch on Cat’s wrist ticked loudly enough to be confused for a metronome. It was the only sound in the room.

Beyond, of course, her and the tiny girl’s breathing.

The tiny girl who knew Kara very well.

And who was glaring at Cat like she’d murdered someone.

“Can I help you,” Cat finally said. And she was deeply grateful there wasn’t an adult around to judge her.

“Did you make Kara sick?”

“What—I don’t have…cooties.”

“Cooties aren’t real.”

Well, wasn’t she a little genius.

“And how would you know?”

“My parents are scientists. They’re really smart. So am I.”

“What’s one plus one?”

“Two. Who are you?”

How on earth could an infant be so aggressive? “A friend. Who are you?”

“Alex Danvers.”

“How old are you? Forty? Forty-five?”

“I’m almost three. How old are you?”

“Old enough to be offended by the question. Why are you so assertive?”

“My mom says I can be whatever I put my mind to.”

“You should put your mind to less precocious. Someone might mistake you for a forty year old with a hormone condition.”

The little girl squinted at her, but they were saved from further, excruciating, conversation by Clark returning with what Cat could only assume was his mother.

She looked very windswept.

And clean.

Cat wasn’t really sure why, but she’d expected a woman covered in dirt and wearing an oversized shirt about her favorite football team.

Martha Kent was a little ropey, and very young apart from the streak of bright gray racing through her otherwise mousey brown hair.

She gave Cat a quick once over that was as savage as any her own mother had ever given her. “You must be Cat.” And the way she said it—Cat had no idea if Martha Kent was being friendly or haughty or mean.

“Mrs. Kent, it’s a pleasure.”

She held her hand out, but Martha, either snubbing her or worried about her niece, pushed past her. “Clark says Kara’s sick?”

“ _Very_ sick,” Clark said. Leaning heavy on the very. As though they’d all forgotten.

Martha hummed and went into Kara's bedroom, slamming the door shut before Clark or Cat could follow.

***

"What happened?"

"She was poisoned."

"Kara can't be poisoned. She's never even had a sniffle."

"Clark has."

"Because he blew his powers out on a temper tantrum."

A hand pressed to Kara's forehead and she leaned into the pressure with a smile.

But she didn't open her eyes. She was too tired. Her eyelids too heavy.

"Kara?"

Her mom. Alive and well and looking at her with concern. That's what she's see if she could just open her eyes.

"Whatever it is its slowed her heart-rate and breathing."

The hand settled on her cheek. "So what do we do? Is there medicine?”

"The best medicine for a Kryptonian is rest, Martha."

Martha. Clark's adoptive mother. Kind and good and not Alura Zor-El. Not Kara's mother. Not home.

She shuddered and the hand slipped away.

"What about the sun? Clark could fly her somewhere it’s actually shining—“

"Clark already went and got you Martha. He's fast and strong, but he's not up to his cousin's level yet."

"So we just wait?"

"That's all we can do."

"Twenty--" Kara swallowed, the spit thick in her throat. "Twenty-four hours. That's what he said."

"We're not going to just wait for you to die Kara."

"He said it's fatal to ninety...ninety-nine percent. Maybe--"

"She's the one percent," Jeremiah finished. But he said it like Kara’d worked out a problem he’d been deliberating. "This guy's never dealt with a Kryptonian. Not one like Kara at least." She felt something press against her hand. "Look. She's still invulnerable."

"I don't like just waiting Jeremiah. I do that enough at home."

Kara reached out blindly in the direction she though Martha's hand was. And she squeezed.

“Bright…bright side…is we don’t have to wait long.”

***

Clark stared at Kara's door like he could see straight through it--like he knew what they were saying on the other side.

All while one hand held a toy just out of Alex's grubby little reach.

The two clearly knew each other.

Well.

And Cat felt like a big fat interloper.

A big fat _useless_ interloper.

She stood up abruptly, drawing both children's attention. "I'm done waiting," she announced. "And hungry." She glanced back towards the bedroom. "And they're probably hungry too. Come on."

She grabbed her purse and stood at the door expectantly. First Clark, then Alex, reluctantly got off the couch and went through the open door.

"I'm not supposed to go with strangers," Alex said in a too loud whisper.

"Cat's not a stranger," Clark said as loud.

Which was funny, because Cat very much felt like a stranger in this little group.

***

They settled on fried chicken, which Alex consumed like a little bird, and Clark laid waste too, stripping every bone of meat, and often cartilage.

Cat tried to eat hers with a fork and knife--a custom in her mother's home--until the two children's bewildered stares wore her down.

"Fried chicken is impossible to eat."

"No it's not." Clark snatched the discarded skin off her plate and threw it into his mouth. "Kara says it reminds her of home."

"Indiana?"

"Argos City," Alex said with a roll of her eyes.

Clark turned bright red.

"Where in Indiana is that," Cat asked, chin balanced on knuckles.

"It's in--"

Clark shushed the girl, who scowled at him. "I know where it is Clark."

"But she doesn't. She thinks Kara's from Indiana!"

Cat spoke up. "But she's not."

Clark flinched.

"She's from Albania," Alex shouted.

Whether Kara was or not Clark still groaned and threw his head into his hands. "Kara's gonna kill me."

"Kara's from Albania?"

Clark was still flushed, the red high on his cheeks. "I'm not supposed to talk about it." He wrapped a hand around Alex's mouth just as she opened it to say more. "Neither of us are."

"Kara won't mind."

"Yeah, she will."

"So I'm just supposed to wait until she tells me?" She twisted the wrapper from her straw between her fingers and leaned in. "I don't like secrets."

Clark fidgeted, his eyes flickering towards the direction of Kara's apartment. Like he could see in, from blocks away. And like he was worried about what he saw.

"She's going to be fine," Cat said.

"You can't know that."

"True, but your cousin is stubborn, and I am almost positive she's been through worse than an especially bad flu, or whatever she has."

"It's--"

"Just that she doesn't get sick. I know. Clark how long have you known your cousin?”

"She moved in when I was five."

"So that's been what? Seven years? Eight? You know the last time I got sick?" From something besides alcohol. "High school."

Alex narrowed her beady little baby eyes at Cat.

"Now come on, I've seen four separate people get milkshakes. Clearly we should too."

***

They come back with milkshakes, and Alex insisted on carrying the prodigious amount of extra chicken herself. The bag was almost as big as the girl, and Cat and Clark kept having to pause on the way back so she wouldn't fall behind.

"Be easier if I carried it," Clark said.

Cat agreed. But said, "She wants to be helpful. She clearly cares about Kara."

"She worships her. It's kind of gross."

"Just remember you're judging a three year old Clark."

He flushed again and kicked at the street. The asphalt was worn enough it chipped under his toe. Cat bumped his shoulder with hers and when he looked up she raised an eyebrow. Then he ducked his head and bit his lip.

"It's all right. For a toddler she's very shady."

That pulled a bark of laughter out of the boy and he abruptly pulled Cat into a one armed hug.

She tried not to freeze up in his hold. Clark was a painfully observant boy, and he'd notice in a heartbeat.

So she let her hand settle on his head and her fingers fall into his hair, and she curved into the boy. Just a little.

And she told herself it was all just to comfort a scared child.

***

Martha Kent's hugs looked like they could crush bones. Clark even let out an "oomph" when she pulled him into her.

"Where on earth did you all go?"

Alex's face was completely hidden behind the bag of take out. "We got chicken!"

Martha looked, flabbergasted, from Alex to Clark before settling on Cat.

"I thought everyone might be hungry," Cat said.

"Did y'all kill the birds yourself?"

"We ate there." Cat stepped closer and lowered her voice. "They needed a break."

Martha gave Cat's forearm a squeeze. "Well come on then. I'm starving, and Alex I know for a fact you daddy's hasn't eaten."

"And Kara."

"And Kara. Though she doesn't have much of an appetite with this bug."

"She can have some of my milkshake if she wants."

Martha looked like her heart might break at Alex's offer. And that was all Cat needed to know.

Whatever was wrong with Kara, she was _sick_.

She was curled up on her side with what had to be every blanket in the house, and there was a cannula in her nose providing oxygen.

Jeremiah leapt up when he saw Cat. Came forward with arms held out in front of himself.

"You have her on oxygen."

"She's experiencing respiratory distress--"

"So she should be in a hospital!"

"And they'd do exactly what I'm doing."

She tapped her foot and fought the urge to lunge for the walkaround phone, because she was sure that more _could_ be done. Had to be done

"This is--this is insane. Kara could be dying. Wrapping her up in blankets and pumping her full of oxygen won't help!"

"I know that's what you think but--"

"Oh save it for the corn shuckers on the other room!" She reached for the phone. "I'm calling an ambulance and getting her real help."

"Cat." Kara's voice was a whisper and her eyes were red-rimmed and bruised. Dark against her slick skin.

She knelt beside her and took her cool hand in hers. "You need help.”

"Jeremiah--"

"Can't--"

Kara squeezed her hand with surprising strength. "He's got me Cat. I trust him."

"I don't."

She tugged her hand again, so Cat was pulled closer. "So trust me."

That was the thing. There was a chasm between the two of them. A pearl of lies irritating whatever foundation they built. Kara didn't trust her. But Cat wanted, desperately, to trust Kara. Whatever inner sanctum Kara possessed Cat wanted entrance to.

She lay her palm on Kara's cheek. The satisfaction hummed in her chest. "Twenty-four hours," she whispered.

Kara smiled sleepily. "That's enough."


	8. Chapter 8

Martha sang to herself. A soft lilting tune that was technically from the Country genre, but that Kara would forever associate with _Earth_.

She had some needlepoint on her lap, and glasses on that made her eyes look enormous.

The needle slipped in and out of the fabric. An irritating cacophony to a Kryptonian. Or a soothing white noise. It depended on the Kryptonian’s mood.

It was the latter for Kara at the moment. Pulling her back in time to her first days on the Kent farm--at least living there openly.

Martha had never pressed Kara for details on where she’d been since the crash or where she went at night. Just sat in the living room singing to herself and doing her cross-stitch.

But she'd been impossibly aware.

"Be careful," she'd say, never looking up from her work. It didn't matter if Kara was sneaking away at eight or three. Martha had been there. And she’d been there when Kara would come home. Exhausted and dirty.

She'd given Kara her space, but been a constant. A rock Kara knew she could latch onto if the tide of the world grew too fierce.

Cat. Cat never gave her space.

She was sitting in a chair closer to the bed, her feet up on the mattress and and her toes pressed into Kara's side.

And she didn't hum to herself or try at busy work.

She muttered and scribbled on a pad.

"That racket's gonna wake her up," Martha said.

Too late. Though Kara mainly just listened. Her eyes closed after taking a brief stock of the room.

"She's passed out."

"Good ears."

Kara could hear Cat rolling her eyes. If she hadn't been so exhausted, so mired in the place between the waking and the sleeping world, she might have smiled.

“What are you working on anyways? Great American novel?”

Cat’s laugh was self-deprecating. “Not my forte. Maybe a self-help book. Or a savage takedown of the politico-media complex.”

“Lofty.”

The way fabric rustled told Kara that Cat had shrugged. “Kara and I have been working on a series of stories. Just want to get started on the next one so she can take a look.”

“Thought you were the editor and she was the writer?”

“It’s really more of a partnership—at least on this story.”

“Kara’s never had many of those.”

“I gathered. Mrs. Kent—“

“You can call me Martha, sweetheart.”

Silence.

“Martha, Clark said something today…about Kara. And…where she's from."

The movement of the needle stopped. "What kind of things?"

"Where is Kara from?"

Martha sighed.

"It's not here. I know that, and she thinks I've forgotten what she was like in high school, but I haven't."

"Where do you think she's from?"

"I don't care."

Martha laughed.

"I just need to know. Please."

"It's not my place--"

Cat shifted in her chair and Kara felt a cool hand embrace her own. "The signs are there Martha." There's an inflection she put into Martha's name. "She's...she's undocumented isn't she?"

"Because she doesn't want to go the hospital?"

"English isn't her first language either. And...little things. She's very good at pretend, but Kara's a stranger here."

"And knowing where she comes from? That will put all the pieces of her together huh? Like a puzzle."

"I care about her."

Soft. Sure. Kara's heart might have swelled with joy if she'd been able to keep her eyes open

***

She woke again to find herself sandwiched between two warm bodies. Clark, on one side. He slept hotter than any human. And Alex burrowed against her other.

Someone was in the kitchen.

Martha and Jeremiah.

She turned her head to look over Clark's.

And Cat was still in the chair. Feet still on the bed. She was asleep, head lolling to one side and a blanket tossed over her shoulders.

The only light streamed in through the window. The sun sluggish in its rise to the sky.

Kara watched it until she slept again.

***

No amount of makeup seemed to cover the bags under Cat's eyes. So she opted for sunglasses when she made her way into work.

She could have called in sick.

Should have.

But after an all night vigil and only and hour or two of sleep she knew there wasn't much she could do--and forcing Kara into a hospital might just draw the kind of attention she shouldn't need.

Of course why the woman thought it was okay to work at a major metropolitan newspaper with that kind of threat hanging over her head was beyond Cat.

Passing through security one of the guards called out to her. Mike or Mikey or something.

He always smiled and nodded.

"Ms. Grant is everything all right with Kara?"

Her eyebrow leapt up above her sunglasses.

One. The first name basis. Two. Thinking _Cat_ would have any warranted comment on the matter.

He fidgeted. "I know you two are friends. She's always going on about you."

Oh if Kara survived the day Cat was never going to let her live this down.

"Why do you think something's the matter?"

He looked at the other guard, who was currently on a heated multilingual discussion with a courier.

Then he waved her around the desk and to the office just behind it.

A coy quip about inappropriate relationships was on the tip of her tongue.

"I was reviewing the footage from yesterday this morning. Like to do that sometimes," he said with a nervous smile.

He selected a tape and popped it in.

"This fella caught my eye because he's--"

"Creepy." It was the Edge’s architect and he was just staring at the entrance to the Daily Planet.

"For most of the day."

"Pretty unsettling right?”

More like deeply.

"Was gonna flag it to my boss but then--" The tape sped forward. Until he paused at the arrival of Kara.

And Kara wasn't standing like she normally did. Her shoulders were back and seemed broader than usual. Her chin tilted up with a measure of cockiness. Even her chest was puffed out a little.

She was _intimidating_.

And then she slumped against the man and he seemed to whisper in Kara's ear. When he left Kara staggered before stumbling to the cab stand.

"Make a copy," Cat said softly. Her fingers were digging into the strap of her purse. "Can you make a copy?”

"Got a dual deck over there."

"Good. Let’s do it right now.”

He did a double take, “Ms. Grant, is Kara okay?”

Cat lied. “She’s gonna be fine.”

***

She slapped the tape against her thigh all the way up the elevator. The film rattled in the cartridge. Proof that Kara had been…something.

Poisoned?

Conveniently sick at the exact same time that she met with a creepy architect involved with a murderous cabal building something at the center of one of the largest buildings in Metropolis?

Poisoned. Definitely.

With what?

How?

That architect. She needed into his apartment. Needed to poke around.

Needed to not get caught and/or murdered.

Lois heard the slap of the tape against Cat’s thigh and looked up from her typewriter. She pulled the pen she’d been sucking out of her mouth. “What’s on the tape?”

“Your conception. What are you doing right now?”

“Working on a good comeback. Why? What’s going on?”

She glanced down at the tape. “I need someone running interference for me. Interested?”

Lois grinned around her pen.

***

“Does Perry know part of your job is B and E?”

Cat scowled. “No. And this isn’t—I’m not going to be reporting on whatever I find in this guy’s apartment.”

Lois raised an eyebrow. “So you’re just stalking him.”

“I think he did something to Kara yesterday. I need to be sure.”

Lois studied Cat, and she was surprised at how _focused_ Lois was. A natural reporter there under the easy smile and big hair.

“She okay?”

“She refused to go to the hospital.”

“Makes sense. With her—“

“You knew?”

Lois shrugged. “Pick up on things when she has me watch Clark. They have some secret language right? And she’s clearly not American. Figure she’s using a fake social at work. Just doesn’t want to risk the hospital.”

Cat sighed and twisted her hands on her steering wheel. “Yes, and now she’s poisoned and possibly dying. She’s got some doctor back her place who’s in on it, but maybe if I can get a sample of whatever this guy used—

“Right. So I’ll keep the creepy assassin man busy at the front door, while you sneak in his back.”

“Please don’t say it like that.”

***

They didn’t have any walk talkies, so Cat and Lois coordinated their “attack” by syncing their watches. Which led to a few snide comments about Cat’s Rolex and Cat’s briefly considering beating Lois with said Rolex and going it alone.

At one on the dot Lois would knock on the door, and _keep_ knocking until Kanto answered.

Cat squeezed in via an alley, climbed two fences, and crouched in the bushes of his backyard, patiently waiting for the minute hand to tick back over to the twelve.

She could hear Kanto inside. He was speaking calmly and evenly and the smoothness of his delivery set Cat on edge.

There was something _off_ about the guy—beyond his being an attempted murderer.

The shrill ring of the doorbell startled Cat, and she crouched lower as Kanto came towards the window.

The bell rang again and his shadow disappeared.

She pried the window open, grateful he wasn’t the kind to lock them, and lifted herself up and over the sill.

“Mr. Jack Kanto? Lois Lane, Daily Planet.”

Lois actually sounded very official as she loudly introduced herself.

Cat quickly rifled through the contents of his desk as Kanto told Lois he had no comment.

There was a loud thump. “Well, now that you’ve broken my foot trying to slam the door on it, the least you can do is answer a question or two.”

Good girl.

And apart from a lot of documents Cat desperately wanted to look at for the GBS tower story, there was nothing. No poison. No _plans_ for poison.

Oddly enough there weren’t even plans for Kanto’s precious tower either.

“I know GBS has made an official statement claiming things are blown out of proportion, but you have to have your own comment Mr. Kanto. Don’t you want to get _your_ part of the narrative out there?”

Cat just needed _something_.

She snapped a few photos of GBS-related documents with her little camera and hoped the exposures would come out right.

Where would a psychopath store his poison? Upstairs? In a safe?

There was a box sitting on the center of Kanto’s desk, and it would, naturally, be the last place he’d store implementations of murder, but it was also unlike anything Cat had ever seen.

The outside almost resembled…circuits and while the box didn’t pulse—because it was an inanimate object incapable of such things—it still seemed to take up all the air in the room.

Small and inert, but this odd box _loomed_.

She reached out to take it. Stopped.

Like…

The box seemed dangerous. Just sitting there, inert on Kanto’s desk, it seemed more threatening than the barrel of a gun might. Or a knife. Or a masked man slipping a noose around Cat’s neck.

She hesitated, her hand hovering over a glowing light at the center of the box.

She swallowed.

She touched it.

There was a hum and a man appeared before her, as though he were in the room. Old and decrepit and wrapped up in a large dark cloak. Even his wrinkles had wrinkles.

He peered at her with eyes dark as onyx.

Then he spoke. His language—definitely not English. Was grating and awful.

At the front door Kanto was excusing himself and Lois was loudly trying to stop him and Cat had to get out. She had to run.

The cloaked man was speaking to her. Demanding something. Or lecturing. Or asking a question.

Cat had no idea what he was doing.

But she knew _Kanto_ had heard him.

Knew Kanto, who tried to murder Kara and may have been the one that attacked Cat, was shutting the door in Lois’s face and coming back to his office.

She knew Kanto was much, much, much more than he seemed.

She leapt out the window and was over the fence and into his neighbor’s yard before he was back.

Her heart didn’t stop racing until after she and Lois had met back up. Until after she gave Lois the film to be developed. Until after she was back in Kara’s apartment and watching the stuttering rise and fall of Kara’s chest.

Jesus Christ they were in over their heads.

Martha didn’t ask where she’d been. Though Alex pestered her with questions, trailing after her like toilet paper stuck to the bottom of Cat’s shoe.

Martha, blessed midwest saint that she was, must have noticed Cat’s growing irritation because she dragged Clark and the devil infant out of the apartment in a quest for “groceries for dinner.”

Jeremiah got up from his vigil at Kara’s bed and squeezed Cat’s shoulder on his way out.

She wasn’t going to say she felt like a grieving spouse or girlfriend—because she and Kara had barely kissed. Really only flirted. They weren’t, technically, any more to each other than coworkers.

But as she sat there watching Kara take longer with each breath, she felt acutely _involved_.

She took Kara’s hand in hers, just like she’d seen her mother take her father’s, and friend’s take their spouses.

It was tradition.

"I've never been good at waiting," she whispered into the quiet. She played with Kara's fingers and her thumb pressed into the top of her hand. The prominent vein disappearing with every press. "When my father died there was a lot of waiting. So this? Not a way to win me over Kara Kent."

Kara's breathing hitched and stuttered.

"Mother doesn't like to talk about him. Back then it was all mysterious—none of the stigma yet. His jaunt in hospice was normal, I suppose. But now..."

She kissed Kara's knuckle again. Like she'd done dozens of time since she'd gotten sick.

"Do you think it's hereditary? All these feelings I have? Did your parents have them? Was your father mad for another man? Your mother in love with a woman?"

She reached out to brush the hair off Kara's face.

"You can't go and die just when I found you again Kara Kent. It's not fair to either of us."

***

"Their sun will give you extraordinary abilities."

She'd heard her mother in her head as soon as she'd leapt from her pod. When she'd flown high enough to dance in the starlight her mother's words had been there. A comforting cape worn over her shoulders.

"You will be amazing," her uncle had said with a measure of pride.

"A marvel," her aunt had intoned. Her own fear there in her white-knuckled grip on Kal.

"You will do great things," Kara’s father had said. He'd been so kindly then. None of the cool analytical edges that were more familiar to her.

"Rao's light in a new world." Her mother wasn't religious. She did not look to the sun wth prayers on her lips.

Each kiss burned on her skin. Each hug the last crushing one she'd receive. It wasn't tears, but her whole world burning in her throat as she took those last trembling steps towards the pod.

Her last sight, before the Phantom Zone yawned before her, wasn't the ash and detritus of her people.

It was Rao, fat and heavy and red. A warm comfort.

Then there was this new sun. "Sol" if a name need desperately apply. Yellow and bright and hot.

***

"Their sun will give you extraordinary abilities."

***

It burned on her skin.

Burned the poison out.

Her own God had forsaken her.

A younger one saved her.

***

Martha was all Kara could see. Bright brown eyes and a bumpy nose she'd broken in high school at a cutting horse competition. And a smile that warmed Kara through.

Her hand combed through Kara's hair. "How you feeling?"

"Like death."

"Jeremiah out there thinks that sun went and healed you. Got pretty scary for a while."

"How--" she swallowed. Her throat was dry. "How scary."

"Your girl was like to drive the ambulance through the front door herself. Now she’s just asleep.” She jerked her chin towards Cat, who was passed out in the chair, legs splayed open and headed lolled to one side.

Kara looked back towards her foster mother, ”Martha..."

"She's sweet. Little too much girl for my taste, but y'all on Krypton got different social mores so I'm not gonna go stomping on 'em just because I know how things are here."

"She's a friend."

"Sure Kara. Bet she'd be real happy to hear you call her that."

Kara scowled and Martha chuckled and leaned forward to kiss her forehead. "You get some rest you here? I'll send Clark in with some dinner in a bit."

Ooo. Dinner. She tried sitting up, but Martha's hand was enough to put her back down again.

"Was gonna make soup as that's what you're to eat when you're sick. But I never know with you kids."

"Pork chops. The fried ones. With collard greens?"

Another laugh that made Kara just want to burrow under the covers and sigh with relief.

Clark came in afterwards, and before Kara could say thanks he'd hurled a squealing Alex at her like a football.

"Oh my god your butt is boney," she grunted. Alex giggled and Kara held her up by her collar, like she used to hold Clark’s dog by the scruff of his neck. "Why is your butt so boney?”

"Jane Fonda workout."

"Your mom needs to toss those tapes little miss."

She dropped Alex back onto her stomach and pulled her close. Squeezing her as tight as she ever would a human.

Alex groaned something about her being stinky and tried to scramble out of Kara's arms. So she flipped her around and blew raspberries into her stomach.

Clark scrunched his nose. "You do stink."

"I'm sorry I offend."

He grinned. "Not as much as me."

She was about to ask what Clark meant when a disgusting smell assaulted both her and Alex's nose.

Alex clamped her little hands over her nose. "Did your butt die?”

Great. Somehow Alex, tiny girl genius, had learned fart jokes.

And that was when Cat stirred, wiping sleep out of her eyes and looking around the room in confusion. She wrinkled her nose. “What on earth is that smell?”

Clark turned as red as his favorite ball cap and Alex laughed and opened her mouth wide to deliver truths best left unspoken.

Kara clamped her hand over Alex’s mouth. “I need to shower.”

Cat’s whole face softened and her little smile melted Kara. “You’re awake.” She said it like Kara had accomplished a great miracle just by opening her eyes.

“Got tired of sleeping.”

Cat didn’t say anything. Just kept giving her that dopey soft smile that made her heart race and her insides twist up.

Clark said something and took Alex back and Kara really wished she could have paid attention—could have listened to what her cousin was saying. But she couldn’t stop looking at Cat and basking in her gentle smile.

“Glad you’re alive. I was worried about you.”

“Thanks.”

“And Clark and Alex are right, you smell awful.”

“There was a lot of sweating,” Kara said defensively.

“And now there should be a lot of showering. Do you need help?”

She couldn’t _not_ give Cat a lazy grin.

Cat rolled her eyes. “Into the bathroom. We’re not close enough for me to give you a sponge bath.”

“First time for everything.”

She whipped the covers up, immediately giving Kara an unpleasant chill. “Not that. Now can you walk or should I use my shoe to kick you in there.”

“You know I almost died?”

“Oh I am well aware. Right now I’m glad you’re alive, later I’m going to be pissed that you didn’t tell me Jack Kanto poisoned you.”

“I—“

“You—“

Shit.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So...this has basically been sitting on my hard drive since July...

Jeremiah had his stethoscope pressed to Kara’s back and he was staring at his watch, ticking off each second.

“Breathe again.”

Kara took a deep breath. Let her lungs expand. Expelling the air and putting a little frost on the end.

Jeremiah noticed and gave her a fleeting smile.

He and Eliza had been fascinated by her when she’d revealed herself. Overcome with a scientific curiosity that had Kara envious.

They hadn’t been scared or confused or eager to exploit. Just curious. About where she’d come from. How she’d made it to Earth. How her cells differed from a human’s. Her heart and lungs and eyes. Little minute differences they’d marvel over while she’d nod.

Because she knew the differences already. Learned them when she was a girl.

It had been terrifying to trust them with her secret. She hadn’t given them her name at first—when they were still grad students and the star of MIT’s bioengineering program. She’d just appeared at the window of their loft and said she’d needed help.

But in the last few years, as they finished grad school, and Eliza took up a degree in astrophysics and Jeremiah snagged a medical one “just to be safe”, Kara realized they weren’t just tools to be used.

At some point they’d become friends. Dear friends. She’d been there when Eliza gave birth to Alex and held the squirming, tiny, perfect infant in her arms. Suddenly acutely away of how fragile humans were. And how desperately she needed to protect them.

Keeping her name from Eliza and Jeremiah stopped seeming like a necessity and more like a cruelty.

So one night, over dinner, with Alex nestled in her arms, she looked up and said, “My name’s Kara Kent. I spent the last few years on a farm in Kansas.”

Jeremiah had chuckled and Eliza had slapped his arm and said, “That explains the colloquialisms! No accent, but you definitely sometimes sound country Kara.”

With Martha (and Jonathan), with Eliza and Jeremiah, there’d been fear and years of agonizing over how to reveal herself. How to own who—and what—she was.

Meanwhile she’d been close to Cat for only a few weeks and was prepared to tell her everything. The truth was heavy on her tongue.

And the people around her knew it too.

That stupid phrase “wear your heart on your sleeve” was making a _lot_ of sense.

“Your friend staying over,” Jeremiah asked, eyes still on his watch.

“Someone tried to kill her the other day, I figure it was safer here with me.”

“And Clark.”

“He's bulletproof.”

“They almost killed you with poison Kara. You and your cousin aren’t as indestructible as we thought.”

"Maybe. But she's less so. I need her close if I want to protect her."

"Clark could stay with Eliza and I then, or back at the farm?"

She shook her head. "The safest place for _both_ if them is with me, Jeremiah. You know that."

He dropped his stethoscope into his pocket. "I just worry."

"Me too. I didn't think I could even get sick anymore. Not without blowing my powers first."

"What does Clark call it?"

She rolled her eyes. Her little cousin was a _nerd_.

"Do you think you might have blown your powers beforehand?"

She shook her head. "I was completely fine before I touched him. He definitely poisoned me, but..."

Jeremiah patiently watched her.

"He knew what I was. Just by looking at me."

Jeremiah kept his voice low. "An alien."

"A Kryptonian."

"That's specific."

"And virtually impossible to do. We’re practically indistinguishable from you--at least on the outside. The only way he'd be able to tell is if he'd seen my kind before. Been around us."

"You think he's Kryptonian."

Kara desperately wished that could be true, but he wasn't--couldn't be. There was something inordinately hard about her would be murderer. Whatever he was it wasn't human or Kryptonian.

"No. He's something else."

"What?"

"I wish I knew."

"You think maybe keeping Cat around while you prepare to go toe to toe with a homicidal alien might be a bad idea? She's a reporter right? What are you going to do when she figures it out."

"She's not gonna figure it out."

"You severely overestimate you ability to lie."

Kara pouted. "She's not gonna figure it out," she clarified, "because I'm going to tell her."

Jeremiah looked...skeptical. "You're going to tell her you're an alien from another planet."

"Well not like that. You sound crazy when you say it like that."

"Everyone sounds crazy Kara. You can't talk about aliens on the planet earth and not sound crazy."

"But I'll show her my powers. I'll sell it."

He bundled up his stethoscope.

"By the time I'm through Cat Grant will be in genuine awe of my alien nature."

***

Cat waited until Jeremiah and Alex were gone. Martha was snoring softly on the couch, Clark wrapped up tightly in her arms and the only light came from the lamp in the vent hood, which whirred softly, trying to eat up the last vestiges of fried pork chops that lingered in the air.

Cat dropped a blanket onto the mother and child and softly crept down the hallway, torn between the promise of a cool night's sleep in Clark's bedroom, and the discussion begging to be had in Kara's.

She sighed and opened the door.

Kara was looking better, her color had returned, and after a shower and a change of sheets and clothes neither she or her room reeked.

Cat had the desire to curl up on the bed next to her. Lay her head on Kara's soft breast and let her steady breathing lull her to sleep.

And she also wanted to shake her awake. To demand her secrets be shared.

She needed Kara to know that whatever the truth was it was _okay_. They would be okay. Cat would understand, or she'd learn to.

They'd been back in each other's lives so briefly but now Kara's presence tugged at some ineffable part of Cat.

As if she knew she was being watched Kara opened her eyes. And she smiled.

Damn it.

"I feel weird sleeping in your cousin's bed."

Kara just patted the pillow beside her, and Cat might have rolled her eyes, but she was exhausted. Instead she shucked off her pants and pulled on some wind shorts and a t-shirt peeking out if her bag.

Kara folded around her as soon as she lay back. Cool lips falling on Cat's neck. Casual. Like they'd just found their way there when Kara had come closer.

Cat pulled away. "Just sleep."

"We should talk."

It was exactly what Cat wanted to do. She wanted to talk. She wanted the truth. "Yes, we should. Ready to say why you lied?"

"It's complicated."

"It really isn't."

Kara pulled away and leaned over Cat. "But it is. And I want to explain it right."

Cat waited.

Kara chewed on her lip. The she groaned and flopped back onto her side of the bed.

"It shouldn't be this hard to tell someone the truth Kara."

Kara laughed bitterly. "This kind of truth it is."

Cat waited a little longer, but all Kara could do was groan about being stupid and thump her palm against her forehead.

So Cat turned away and pulled herself into a little ball. "Goodnight."

The lights switched off and Cat felt Kara's hand hovering over her back. But then she pulled away with a whispered "sorry."

***

She woke up before Kara the next morning. And Martha and Clark too.

Cat had slept fitfully and Kara had blindly reached for her to mutely soothe her often, which just made it worse.

New feelings and old had blossomed in Cat, made her affection for Kara inescapable. She wasn't sure what they were to one another, but she wanted to find out. Though Kara's own dishonesty existed as a bulwark between them.

So rather than dwell in problems she could do nothing about Cat decided to focus on what she could fix.

Like her apartment.

And their growing case against Morgan's company.

After hiring a contractor to fix her windows Cat started making calls.

Morgan was wealthy, but he wasn't building his new tower alone. Wayne Enterprises had invested heavily in the project.

Cat figured Bruce Wayne was too stupid to be involved in the illegal dealings, but maybe he, or his company's CTO, Lucius Fox, had access.

It was a long shot, but it was better than chasing after Kara's would be murderer.

Or. At least. Safer.

So Cat hopped in her aging Volvo and headed across the bay to Gotham, making her way through the dense dark streets to the outskirts, where yellowed grass and dying trees eradicated some of the majesty of Wayne Manor, a house nearly as famous as its owner.

No one responded when she pressed the button on the intercom at the gate.

There was a guard house standing sentry, and from far away it would have looked impressive, red brick and white trim. Up close she could see how the paint had peeled and been painted over, and she could see the bits of dust and leaves that had made its way inside the long abandoned room.

She parked her car further down the road, walked back, and rang the intercom again.

When there was no answer Cat had a choice. Call Wayne Enterprises and hope someone took her call and passed it along, or slip through the gaping bars of the gate.

She should have chosen the former, but attempted murders were sitting heavy in her mind. So she hiked up her skirt and moved through the bars, mindful of the rusted parts that threatened to give her lockjaw.

A voice, high and rich, called out from the trees as she plodded towards the manor.

"Most people don't see a closed gate as an invitation."

She tried to look cocky by settling one hand on her waist, but she had to use the other to shade her eyes. "Most people answer when you ring. Bruce Wayne I presume?"

A boy--no a man, closer in age to her and Kara than Clark emerged from the shadows. But his feet made no noise moving through the brush, and the branches didn't reach out to claw at the dark sweater and pants he wore.

He was foppish to an extent. Dark hair hanging in front of bright blue eyes, and an easy smile that pulled a little too tightly at the corners of his mouth.

"You assume I run this place?" He smile never wavered.

"Well you clearly can't be the groundskeeper, or you should be fired, and, there's also the matter of your face."

He touched his cheeks, blue with stubble.

"Even if we hadn't gone to the same school for six months I'd be an idiot to not know what Bruce Wayne looks like."

"I'm feeling a little stalked."

Cat offered a business card like ID. "Cat Grant. Daily Planet."

He laughed. "I remember you."

She raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"I mean, I was the kid with dead parents, but that didn't hold a candle to your library scandal."

Cat scowled. "What the hell is the library scandal."

"You were attacked by a lesbian."

He said it matter of factly. Like discussing his own parents' death. As casually as most people talked about the new chair in their living room.

"I wasn't."

He shrugged. "And I didn't get expelled for blowing up the theater during a party."

"No. It was the chemistry lab. The party in the theater was just a distraction."

For the first time since meeting him, Bruce Wayne's smile was finally warm.

He finally took Cat's card. "So what does the Daily Planet want with a feckless playboy."

"Invitations to any planned Wayne galas would be nice, but I'd settle for a conversation about your business dealings with Morgan Edge."

"I don't really keep up with the day to day business of Wayne Enterprises."

"Your CTO does. And you and Morgan went to school together."

"So did you and I. What does that mean?"

Cat rooted around in her bag and produced a paper, carefully folded to her article. "Some light reading Bruce. A CEO should really know what his company is up to."

Bruce quickly scanned the article then offered the paper back. "Tonight, I'm throwing a party. You should come."

"That's not an answer."

"I guarantee," he stepped closer, the paper still between them. Tapped it lightly against Cat's chest. "It will be a blast."

***

Kara got ahold of Cat that afternoon. There was the drone of a TV in the background. Punctuated by the clatter of pans.

"Martha is making meat loaf, which I know you have some offense against probably--"

"Meat shouldn't be loaved--"

"But hers is good. No ketchup in sight. Wonderfully meaty."

"That's lovely Kara."

Lois, hunched over her typewriter on the other end of the bullpen, whipped around fast enough to hurt herself.

Cat lowered her voice. "But I think I'm going to eat at home tonight."

There was a whoosh of wind, then silence. The background noise disappeared. "Why?"

Cat closed her eyes, because if she left them open she'd have a very clear picture in her minds eye of Kara. She'd see her disappointment written on her face as if scribbled with a fat tipped marker.

"Staying at your place was just temporary Kara. Until I could get my door fixed."

"They tried to murder you--"

"And they poisoned you."

"Right. Which is why we should stick together."

"Why didn't you tell me you were poisoned?”

Silence.

"Why didn't you let me take you to the hospital?”

Deafening silence. Then a deep breath rattled over the phone. "Please Cat. I'll explain. I will. I just need you to--"

"I have to go Kara."

"Cat..."

Her protest was half hearted. So weak willed Cat wanted to cry. She hung the phone up and laid her head on her desk.

Eventually Lois, who'd never met an open wound she wouldn't stab her finger into, stepped into her line of sight.

"You guys breaking up?"

She stopped moping long enough to eviscerate Lois with her eyes.

It would have worked, but Lois appeared to be invulnerable to everything short of a bullet to the head.

Cat narrowed her eyes. "Did you know you're an intern?"

"I did."

She held out a receipt. "Go pick up my dress."

"I'm not that kind of intern."

"You'll be no kind of intern if you don't."

"What do you need the dress for?"

"Bruce Wayne invited me to a party tonight."

Lois looked skeptical. "Bruce Wayne, man of the many yachts?”

"That exact Bruce Wayne. He's was an investor in GBS tower, and his new pal Morgan Edge will be there. The architect too."

"You don't think marching straight into a den of billionaires who have it out for you might be dangerous?"

Supremely dangerous.

"I think," she emphasized the think, "that it will be a big party."

Lois frowned. "You could die."

"I'm not going to die going to a party."

Lois still looked skeptical. "Just don't accept any drinks anyone offers you."

***

"Champagne?"

Bruce Wayne, the most cliched billionaire playboy to ever crawl out of the gossip pages, was offering Cat Grant a drink.

She was in a Gotham City Opera House that screamed of a kind of fortune her meager trust fund couldn't compare to. People in dresses that cost more than her apartment flitted across a polished dance floor. Woman and men were bedecked in jewels. Sparkling necklaces and glittering cuff links.

And everyone's faces were hidden behind masks.

It was Cat's first masquerade ball, and she would have been elated if she wasn't stuck in a room with a few men that had tried to murder her.

Bruce, she hoped, she could trust. There was something shrewd behind that guise of dim witted playboy. Something sharp and watchful that reminded her too much of herself or Lois.

And something kind. Whatever else Bruce was he was nice.

So she accepted the champagne and sighed as fragrant bubble tickled her nose.

"You throw a wonderful party," she said.

Bruce laughed. "A team of people I pay throw a wonderful party. I just show up."

"So what do you do?" She continued to sip her champagne and watch him from behind a lavender mask.

He looked down at his own glass. The sharp lines of his black mask highlighted high cheekbones and a nose just shy of beakish. "I'm still trying to figure that out. I'd like to make things better, I suppose. Safer."

"Is that why you invested in GBS Tower?"

"Morgan was a good guy growing up."

She hummed into her glass. "That's because you were behind us in school. Morgan's a silver spoon prick."

"I would think anyone going to a school like that is."

"Yes, but some of us step away from the trust fund, from all the glitz and glamour. We try to be better than what came before us." She was careful not to invoke parents. Not with with most famous orphan in Gotham. "Isn't that why you dropped out of school? Travelled the world?"

"You make it sound more noble than it was."

"I'm aware of the party boy image. I'm also aware of what a very drunk Daily Planet reporter said you did for him in Iran."

Bright eyes softened behind Bruce's mask. "You know what the biggest surprise of the night is Cat?"

She tilted her head.

"You."

It should have been a condescending come on worthy of an eye roll. But then Bruce set her glass on a tray as a waiter passed by and pulled her out onto the dance floor.

He wasn't a trained dancer by any means. But Bruce Wayne knew how to use his body, and how to mimic the steps of everyone around them.

He was enchanting. Enthralling. En--

"May I cut in?"

Bruce disappeared and a woman swam in front of Cat's vision. The dark blue sheath dress was cut a little high for a formal affair like the masquerade ball, but it fit the woman’s form so perfectly it didn't matter.

She could have strolled up to Cat naked and still been the best dressed person in the room.

A cascade of blond hair down to her shoulders and glittering eyes peeking from behind a mask the same shade of red as the color on her lips.

It took Cat longer than she cared to realize she was dancing with Kara.

Kara was warm and firm and nothing like the ailing woman of the last few days.

Cat desperately wanted to sink into her and sigh.

Instead she dug her nail into Kara’s hand. “What are you doing here?”

“Lois told me you were trying to kill yourself. She was going to come as back up. I volunteered instead.”

“You nearly died. You should be at home resting.”

Kara pulled her in as the music changed. “You kind of broke up with me before we were officially dating. I wanted to fix it.”

“How did you even get in. There’s security everywhere.”

“Balcony.”

She twirled Cat away and Cat glared at her. Kept it up as Kara pulled her back. “You snuck in.”

“I can be very sneaky when I want to be.”

“You could get thrown out. If it gets out that Daily Planet reporters are sneaking into private parties…”

“I’m in disguise Cat. When was the last time I wore my hair down? Ever?”

Not since they’d been in high school.

Kara pulled her close. Too close to be appropriate in a crowded ballroom.

"I want to explain everything to you Cat. Can I do that?"

"Tonight? Now?"

"It's as good a time as any."

Cat caught sight of Bruce at the edge of the dance floor. Glower in no way hidden by his mask.

She looked for Morgan, found him amongst a group of what could only be described as "goons." Jack Kanto was on the stairs, terrifying eyes sharp as ever.

"We're surrounded."

"So let's not be."

Her fingers pressed into Cat's back and she stifled a groan, pulled away. Darted for the bathroom and before Kara could follow she was caught be Bruce's sure hand.

***

Cat bypassed the bathroom entirely. There wasn't a line, but women crowded and dark eyes, filled with jealousy, stalked her when she came close.

Instead she wandered out to the theater itself. It was dark, the lights hanging inertly over head. There was only the red glow of the exit signs.

She moved down the aisle and climbed up into the stage. It had been recently painted a swirl of white and blue, like the frothy waves striking the rocks. Glitter from the last opera dusted Cat's shoes.

She kicked them off and danced lightly, kicking up a sparkly bit of dust.

She tried not to think about the woman in the other room.

The woman with powerful feelings and who fostered the same.

But her respite ended. A slant of bright light struck the stage as Kara came into the theater.

She moved slowly and her footsteps seemed to make no noise. Absurd in the heels she was wearing.

Cat swept a toe through the mix of resin and glitter.

It blew away as Kara approached. As if caught by a gentle breeze. "I didn't know they painted the stage."

"Don't go to a lot of theater?"

"Not of lot of opportunities in Smallville."

"And before?"

"It was okay. A lot like noh? That Japanese stuff with the masks? Aspiring to the perfect performance."

"And where was it, that you had such aspirational performing arts."

"Far away." Kara’s toes swept through the dust and glitter. The tip of her shoe landing on a spot bright like a tiny star. "Maybe there."

Cat sighed. "Why can't you just tell me the tr--"

The door at the end of the center aisle slammed open and then shut again. Morgan Edge and his new friends filed in.

"Cat, you left the party!"

"I was taking a break from being glared at by you and your friends."

"Well I'm glad I have you here. I wanted to chat."

Kara stepped in front of her. Shoulders broad and set firmly.

"Don't need your friend though." He waved two fingers from the men toward Kara and Cat’s direction.

"Kill her."

The gun was drawn before Cat could scream. And there was no loud crack. Something more like a belt striking a pillow. Kara jerked. Once.

And Cat spun Kara around to face her. She'd never been shot at. Never seen someone shot. But she had seen movies. She knew what she'd see. Kara's stunned expression. Blood slowly leaking from a bullet hole. Light fading in bright eyes.

But instead Kara's face was stone.

And there wasn't any blood.

None.

Morgan scowled and the gunmen fired off another round. This time Cat heard the plink of a small piece of metal falling to the stage. It was flattened, like it'd struck a bulletproof vest.

Then Kara was gone and the gunman was flying through the air. Another reached for his gun.

Screamed.

Violence. Hard. Loud. Too fast to follow.

Kara skidded across the stage and away from Morgan as if flung back. She scowled.

He grinned from behind Jack Kanto, who stood between him and Kara, hands up as if he’d just struck a blow.

Kara paced a moment, Kanto’s eyes slid from her to Cat.

And it seemed, in an instant, that Kanto was moving towards her at impossible speeds.

But Kara was faster. And suddenly her arms were around Cat and Cat's scream was lost in a gust of wind.

When she opened her eyes again they were high above Gotham. The sight would have been breathtaking but

She was in. The goddamn. Air.

No ropes! No plane!

Kara was floating serenely over a city of millions like she'd done it forever.

Cat…Cat panicked.

She beat her fists against Kara and maybe screamed about lies and craziness and PUT HER DOWN.

Kara was sputtering a response that ended when Cat's elbow connected with her eye.

It was like she'd elbowed a block of cement.

The hands around her slipped. She dangled. Shoes she'd spent way too much money on disappeared into the darkness below. Then Kara's grip tightened.

"Sorry. I don't usually take humans flying."

"Humans!"

"Can I take you somewhere? Not ten thousand feet above a city? To explain?"

She was still the painfully earnest Kara Cat was in love with. Despite being a super fast, bulletproof, flying, whatever.

Cat nodded after a moment.

Kara very gingerly scooped Cat up in her arms and pulled her close enough that Cat could feel the heat radiating off of her. Cat's arms naturally moved from their death grip around Kara's neck, to rest lightly on her shoulders.

She knew that whatever else happened Kara had her.


End file.
